An Investigation of Teachers’ Cognition, Teacher Practice, and Students’ Grammatical Performance

The aim of this study was to find the effect of teachers’ cognition about grammar on the grammatical performances of their students. Through questionnaires, observations, and brief interviews, four teachers were selected for two main categories and four subcategories of teachers’ beliefs about grammar along a continuum from the strong exercise-based view to the weak exercise-based view, the weak task-based view, and the strong task-based view. Comparison of their students’ grammar scores showed significant differences between the two main categories and between the two subcategories of the exercise-based category, but this was not the case between the two subcategories of the task-based category. In other words, if a usage-based test is used to measure students’ grammatical competence, exercise-oriented teachers, especially those who are more so, are supposed to train more grammatically competent students. The results suggest that teacher educators should help teachers to assess how their beliefs affect their students’ grammatical performances and to better synchronize their beliefs and teaching approaches for the grammatical objectives particular to their courses and students.