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Research Proposal for Teaching Grammar

1. Introduction/ Rationale

The most recent research show that grammar should be thought integrated with writing.

Grammar is best taught integrated with writing: that is, writing for an audience that is broader

than just the teacher or even the teacher and peers (Weaver, (2008). On the other hand many

English teachers in Afghanistan believe that grammar is best taught deductively, through

explanations and examples. As well as, some English teachers think teaching grammar through

communicative language teaching is wasting students time. Therefore, I wanted to do an

experimental research about this issue. Which teaching approach is more effective for

students ability to use grammar in their writing in Afghanistan: teaching grammar isolated or

teaching grammar integrated with writing?

2. Method

In this research my participants will be junior students of English Department. I will have two

groups of participants, each 20 students; one treatment and the other control group. In this

study I will use the pre-test post-test control group design so I will systematically select the

participants of both groups and then randomly assign them to different groups. For this

research I will use a writing pre-test, a writing post test different from the pretest, and I will use

two different types of books while teaching the two groups, treatment and control groups;

teaching grammar integrated with writing and teaching grammar alone.

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3. Results

To get the result of my research I will take the following steps. First, I will compare the average

scores of students paper in the treatment group pre-test with the average of its post test to

find out that how many percent the students have improved in applying grammar in writing.

Then, I will take the average scores of students paper from control group and compare it with

the average of its post test to check how many percent the students have improved in the

treatment group. Finally, I will compare the percentage of improvement from both treatment

group and control group to find out which group has improved a lot or which teaching approach

is more effective for students ability to use grammar in their writing in Afghanistan: teaching

grammar isolated or teaching grammar integrated with writing?

Discussion

To find out whether one of the ways of teaching grammar is effective in students ability to use

grammar in their writing and I will compare the percentage of improvement of the two groups,

control group and treatment group. If the percentage of improvement of the treatment group

was higher than the control group, the treatment teaching grammar integrated with writing will

be effective for student ability in writing. Then I should apply teaching grammar integrated with

writing first in the English department at Kunduz University, then in all over Afghanistan to help

learner write grammatical papers or for them to learn grammar well.

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4. Conclusion

Based on literature this study will help solve ESL learners problem in Afghanistan in learning

grammar. According to my experience and observation teaching grammar isolated have not

been effective for students in Afghanistan to apply it in their writing. Therefore, I believe that

this study will help us come up this problem.

One weakness this study will have is that the treatment group might share ideas or some

material with the control group. Since the number of student in junior classes in Kunduz

University is not higher and we can easily lose some participant if they make some continuous

absence. Then other weakness might be the problem of losing subjects in the study.

Furthermore, one common weakness to this research would be the testing threat that may

affect the result of the research. To strengthen the research I think I can somehow solve the

testing threat by bring different versions of tests in the both pre-test and post-test, but its

difficult to come up with the first weakness because it is a confounding variable but the second

weakness could be solved by increasing the research participants if possible, that seems

impossible.