Student expectations of traditional, explicit grammar teaching have been
confirmed by many teachers (cf. Borg, 1999a, b). Burgess and Etherington
(2002:440-441) also conclude that teachers believe that explicit teaching of
grammar is favoured by their students because of expectations and feelings of
insecurity.
Since the 1970s, attention has shifted from ways of teaching grammar to ways
of getting learners to communicate, but grammar has been seen to be a powerful
undermining and demotivating force among L2 learners. In terms of motivation
and learner success with languages, grammar has been seen to be a problem and
to stand in the way of helping learners to communicate fluently. The hard fact
that most teachers face is that learners often find it difficult to make flexible use
of the rules of grammar taught in the classroom. They may know the rules
perfectly, but are incapable of applying them in their own use of the language.
Teachers' recognition of this process (i.e., of transferring declarative knowledge
about grammar into procedural knowledge) as a problem for many of their
students