My research project shows that the metalinguistic concepts which are best known and
used in the exercises are included in the curriculum for the first 6 years of the primary
school. These concepts appear in the textbooks in simplified and reduced forms, for
example, “subject is a person”, “verb describes doing”, which produce
misunderstandings and a failure to learn “difficult words”. These kinds of misconceptions seem to be difficult to repair. The reformers of the core curriculum
for basic education, which is going on in Finland at the moment, and the publishers of
textbook materials should take this into account this when deciding the content to be
learned. My conclusion is that conceptual change is difficult if, instead of accurate
knowledge of the existing categories as a whole, pupils are taught just portions of
linguistic categories with vague definitions of concepts.
In my research project, I have focused on creating a theoretical basis on which to
build methods for grammar teaching. The interventionist solution that is designed in
this research is the combination of languaging and the visualisation method for
grammar teaching, combining metalinguistic, verbal and visual elements.
The method of languaging and visualisation has been designed and trialled during the
years 2010-2013. This method combines concepts from constructivism, socio-cultural
learning theories, metacognition and metacognitive experiences as well as conceptual
change theory. Further research is necessary to confirm the results with other kinds of
texts as well as with longer textual exercises, which apply multiple, conceptual
grammatical and textual knowledge.