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ELT Journal Advance Access originally published online on March 11, 2008
ELT Journal 2009 63(1):5-12; doi:10.1093/elt/ccn014
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.

Rule difficulty and the usefulness of instruction

Pawel Scheffler

Pawel Scheffler is a lecturer at the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland. His research interests are modern English grammar, second language acquisition, and corpus linguistics. He is the author of Repetytorium gramatyczne w zdaniach do tlumaczenia (English grammar in sentence translations), a popular grammar book on the Polish market

Email: spawel{at}ifa.amu.edu.pl


  Abstract

It is now generally agreed that some form of focus on the target code is necessary in adult L2 instruction. One question that remains to be answered is whether all aspects of L2 grammar are equally amenable to pedagogic intervention. A number of researchers have examined the effectiveness of instruction with regard to simple vs. difficult grammar rules. To address this question specifically from the learner's perspective, a questionnaire was administered to two groups of Polish adult learners of English. The first group was asked to assess the difficulty of a number of key areas of English grammar. The second was asked to assess the usefulness of instruction in the same areas. The results indicate that there is a considerable overlap between the judgements of both groups: that is, learners feel they benefit the most from instruction in difficult areas.

Final revised version received August 2007


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