The case for grammar teaching in EAP

By Milada Walková

At the BALEAP 2023 conference organised by the University of Warwick, there was a plenary session called "Room 101" in which the participants could suggest concepts that they would prefer not to exist in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Among the concepts suggested for Room 101 was grammar teaching (but this suggestion was not discussed or voted for in the session).

The role of grammar in EAP courses continued to be questioned in the presentation The grammar is incidental by Helen Hickey from Goldsmiths, University of London. In her presentation, Helen talked about her experience of various approaches to teaching grammar on a number of EAP courses and how she had shifted from teaching grammar systematically as the core of a module to teaching grammar incidentally in response to student needs. 

I agree with Helen Hickey that EAP should not teach grammar comprehensively and that an EAP course should not be based on a grammar syllabus. However, I am not sure if grammar in EAP courses should be incidental only, and if this is in the best interest of students. This will, of course, depend on the context, such as type of EAP course (e.g. pre-sessional or in-sessional) and its length, or students’ proficiency and experience with academic discourse. In this blog post, I’d like to set out some reasons why in my context I teach grammar more than incidentally. While doing so, I will be referring to two scholarship projects in which I’ve been recently involved. 

Smith (2021) argued? - Introducing 'academic grammar'

The view that grammar should only have a marginal place in EAP is not unusual, and many of my colleagues would agree. One of the reasons why we should not devote time to teaching grammar is, some say, that students have had enough grammar instruction already. While this is true, our students unlikely had instruction in academic grammar. And omitting academic grammar from EAP denies the existence of written academic discourse as a special register characterised by particular grammatical structures which enable communication of dense information (Biber et al. 2021).

One example is the use of tenses with reporting verbs. In my experience, students new to academic writing typically use the past simple tense with citations, e.g. Smith (2021) argued, as their previous grammar instruction taught them to use past simple with a specific point in the past such as a year – instead of present simple, as is the convention (although this may depend on the writer’s stance, see Swales 1990).

Another example is the frequent occurrence of complex noun phrases in academic writing, which developing academic writers tend to underuse (Parkinson and Musgrave 2014). Other structures that learners may underuse include non-finite clauses and some complex words (with the latter, admittedly, at the interface of grammar and lexicon) – as shown by Casal and Xiu (2024) and by Tarasova and Baliaeva (2024), respectively, in the edited volume Linguistic Approaches in English for Academic Purposes: Expanding the Discourse (Bloomsbury, January 2024).  

From corrective to developmental teaching

These examples reflect different aspects of language acquisition: accuracy/appropriateness to conventions and complexity. In my upcoming book Teaching Academic Writing for EAP: Language Foundations for Practitioners (Bloomsbury, June 2024), I propose that teaching grammar can be corrective – to improve accuracy and appropriateness, or developmental – to increase complexity. I argue that language teaching should include both components. As inaccuracy is more likely to cause unintelligibility and to attract readers’ attention than a lack of complexity, there is a danger that incidental grammar teaching might be corrective only, at the expense of the developmental approach.

Both corrective and developmental teaching of academic grammar should be selective rather than exhaustive (as stressed also in Hickey’s presentation). Some structures may be selected due to their occurrence in a target genre. For example, reflective writing and book reviews use structures for the expression of unreal conditions, e.g. could have included, untypical of other genres. Raising students’ awareness of grammatical structures common in particular genres can help them produce these genres more appropriately and confidently. This awareness-raising, however, needs to be planned and take place before students produce their text, rather than incidentally, in response to students not having used the structures appropriately/at all. 

Offering students a different view

Students, too, tend to focus on accuracy/appropriateness rather than complexity, and they often expect simple grammar rules and straightforward answers (Which tense should I use in this sentence?). Instead, we should offer them a different view of grammar – one in which the choice of particular structures is guided by the meaning they as writers intend to communicate.

This functional approach to grammar teaching is advocated, for instance, by Systemic Functional Linguistics (e.g. Halliday and Matthiessen 2013) and by Diane Larsen-Freeman (2015). Teaching grammar should draw on simplified metalanguage in order to help learners think about grammar in more general, abstract ways without overwhelming them with technical terminology. New metalanguage should be introduced gradually and when needed, as pointed out by Walsh Marr (2024). At the same time, teachers have to be aware that the acquisition of grammar takes time and involves halts and fallbacks, as demonstrated by Rosmawati (2024). 

Teacher knowledge and confidence

In the discussion following her presentation, Helen Hickey suggested that students might not trust their EAP teacher telling them which grammatical structures are relevant in academic discourse. This is perhaps a consequence of teaching grammar incidentally without an analysis of language structures occurring in sample authentic texts. Or it might be a consequence of EAP teachers talking about grammar without adequate confidence stemming from familiarity with published research. In fact, it is possible that some EAP practitioners’ antipathy towards grammar teaching is a result of limited knowledge about language. For instance, Borg (2015) suggests that language teachers’ knowledge about grammar and knowledge about appropriate metalanguage are often limited.

Therefore, we need to ask ourselves if the reason why we dismiss grammar as unnecessary for EAP isn’t our lack of knowledge and of confidence, and if this doesn’t shortchange our students. If this is the case, we should develop our knowledge about academic language by reading relevant scholarship, because it is by making our practice informed by available theory and research that “we may give EAP greater credence and make it more relevant in academic terms”, as Cowley-Haselden and Monbec (2019: 44) argue.  

In sum, I believe that as EAP practitioners, we should not see grammar teaching as either the core of what we do or as a discomforting nuisance with limited usefulness. Instead, we should strive to show our students that grammar is a tool for communicating meaning and that academic discourse is characterised by particular grammatical structures that enable the communication of information-dense content. To be able to do this successfully, we need sound knowledge about academic language. And it is to contribute to this knowledge that the two upcoming books I’ve referred to in this blog hope to do.  

References 

• Biber, D., Gray, B., Staples, S. and Egbert, J. 2021. The register-functional approach to grammatical complexity: theoretical foundation, descriptive research findings, application. London: Routledge. 
• Borg, S. 2015. Teacher cognition and language education: research and practice. London: Bloomsbury. 
• Casal, J.E. and Qiu, X. 2024. Non-finite clause use in novice and expert academic writing: a corpus driven analysis for EAP writing instruction. In: Walková, M. ed. Linguistic approaches in English for Academic Purposes: expanding the discourse, pp. 89-116. London: Bloomsbury. 
• Cowley-Haselden, S. and Monbec, L. 2019. Emancipating ourselves from mental slavery: affording knowledge in our practice. In: Gillway, M. ed. Proceedings of the 2017 BALEAP conference. Addressing the state of the union: Working together = learning together, April 2017, Bristol. Reading: Garnet, pp.39–46. 
• Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C.M. 2013. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar. London: Routledge. 
• Hickey, H. 2023. The grammar is incidental. BALEAP conference 2023: Caution! EAP under DEconstruction, 19-21 April, University of Warwick.   
• Larsen-Freeman, D. 2015. Research into practice: grammar learning and teaching. Language Teaching. 48(2), pp.263–80. 
• Parkinson, J. and Musgrave, J. 2014. Development of noun phrase complexity in the writing of English for Academic Purposes students. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 14, pp.48–59.  
• Rosmawati. 2024. Applying Complex Dynamic Systems Theory in EAP curriculum design and teaching practice: challenges and possibilities. In: Walková, M. ed. Linguistic approaches in English for Academic Purposes: expanding the discourse, pp. 117-141. London: Bloomsbury. 
• Swales, J. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic and research settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
• Tarasova, E. and Baliaeva, N. 2024. The role of morphological knowledge in EAP writing: evidence-based study. In: Walková, M. ed. Linguistic approaches in English for Academic Purposes: expanding the discourse, pp. 63-88. London: Bloomsbury. 
• Walsh Marr, J. 2024. Moves away from congruence: interpersonal, logical and grammatical metaphor in EAP. In: Walková, M. ed. Linguistic approaches in English for Academic Purposes: expanding the discourse, pp. 34-59. London: Bloomsbury.