An investigation of the use of grammatical metalinguistic terminology with students under the age of nine : case study

النوع : Mémoire

This study explores the effectiveness of using grammatical metalinguistic terminology (GMT) for teaching grammar to students under the age of nine in a private school in the north of Lebanon. It investigates the teachers’, coordinator’s and administrator’s perception of grammar teaching and learning, and the effectiveness of using GMT to teach grammar to students in the primary classes. It also describes and examines some written documents to explore such effectiveness. It traces a relationship between collected qualitative and quantitative data to question the effectiveness of teaching grammar through teaching grammatical metalinguistic terminology to students under the age of nine. The study uses data collected from different sources: interviews with teachers, a coordinator and an administrator, the diary of the researcher, observation by a colleague, document analysis and book description. Data analysis reveals that the participants believe in the ineffectiveness of teaching GMT to students in primary classes. The interviewees argue that some grammatical terms are beyond the students’ cognitive level and are incomprehensible to them. The document analysis reveals that some students fail to use the knowledge of GMT in writing. The study provides suggestions for future research.