I International Conference on Teaching Grammar
The first edition of the International Conference on Teaching Grammar, organized by GIEL research group, was held at the University of Valencia between 27 and 28 February 2014.
The teaching of grammar, as part of the teaching of language and literature in the different educational stages, has always raised strong controversies around three fundamental aspects: the purpose, the didactic contents and the classroom methodology.
From these elements, at present, it seems unavoidable to approach grammatical reflection from the perspective of the students’ metalinguistic competence development, as well as the complex relations between grammatical knowledge and linguistic use, either from the field of first, second, or foreign languages. Likewise, these aspects must be considered from the diachronic perspective, which offers a vision of the evolution of language teaching and of the construction of the Language Didactics as a discipline.
The congress has been intended as a meeting point for different lines of work around these issues. These include: the students’ conceptions about the different grammatical notions; the didactic transposition of the grammatical contents of school textbooks (from a synchronic or diachronic perspective); the contents taught in the classroom; the relationship between grammar and the composition of texts (oral or written) and on the didactic conditions in which they have to consider or the explicit reflection of students on the grammatical contents aimed at the development of their metalinguistic awareness; the relationship between external events – political, social and scientific – and the constitution of linguistic disciplines (the curricular evolution of the teaching of grammar; the relationship between official curricula and the configuration of school textbooks, etc.); pedagogical debates on the teaching of language or the configuration of school grammar as a genre.
The conference has been designed with the aim of offering a space for the presentation and discussion of current and innovative research in all areas related to the teaching of grammar, both in first, second, and foreign languages, and from a synchronic or diachronic approach .
Link on the web: http://congram2014.blogspot.com/
Inaugural lecture by Dr. Anna Camps (GREAL – UAB), “Towards a renewal of the teaching of grammar”:
Session rapporteurs’ reports, by Dr. Carsten Sinner (U. Leipzig) and Dr. Marta Milian (GREAL – UAB):