1Research Proposal for Teaching Grammar 1. Introduction/ Rationale The most recent research show that grammar should be thought integrated with writing. “Grammar is best taught integrated with writing: that is, writing for an audience that is broader than just the teacher or even the teacher and peers” (Weaver, (2008). On the other hand many English teachers in Afghanistan believe that grammar is best taught deductively, through explanations and examples. As well as, some English teachers think teaching grammar through communicative language teaching is wasting students’ time. Therefore, I wanted to do an experimental research about this issue. Which teaching approach is more effective for students’ ability to use grammar in their writing in Afghanistan: teaching grammar isolated or teaching grammar integrated with writing? 2. Method In this research my participants will be junior students of English Department. I will have two groups of participants, each 20 students; one treatment and the other control group. In this study I will use the pre-test post-test control group design so I will systematically select the participants of both groups and then randomly assign them to different groups. For this research I will use a writing pre-test, a writing post test different from the pretest, and I will use two different types of books while teaching the two groups, treatment and control groups; teaching grammar integrated with writing and teaching grammar alone. 2 3. Results To get the result of my research I will take the following steps. First, I will compare the average scores of students’ paper in the treatment group pre-test with the average of its post test to find out that how many percent the students have improved in applying grammar in writing. Then, I will take the average scores of students’ paper from control group and compare it with the average of its post test to check how many percent the students have improved in the treatment group. Finally, I will compare the percentage of improvement from both treatment group and control group to find out which group has improved a lot or which teaching approach is more effective for students’ ability to use grammar in their writing in Afghanistan: teaching grammar isolated or teaching grammar integrated with writing? Discussion To find out whether one of the ways of teaching grammar is effective in students’ ability to use grammar in their writing and I will compare the percentage of improvement of the two groups, control group and treatment group. If the percentage of improvement of the treatment group was higher than the control group, the treatment teaching grammar integrated with writing will be effective for student ability in writing. Then I should apply teaching grammar integrated with writing first in the English department at Kunduz University, then in all over Afghanistan to help learner write grammatical papers or for them to learn grammar well. 3 4. Conclusion Based on literature this study will help solve ESL learners’ problem in Afghanistan in learning grammar. According to my experience and observation teaching grammar isolated have not been effective for students in Afghanistan to apply it in their writing. Therefore, I believe that this study will help us come up this problem. One weakness this study will have is that the treatment group might share ideas or some material with the control group. Since the number of student in junior classes in Kunduz University is not higher and we can easily lose some participant if they make some continuous absence. Then other weakness might be the problem of losing subjects in the study. Furthermore, one common weakness to this research would be the testing threat that may affect the result of the research. To strengthen the research I think I can somehow solve the testing threat by bring different versions of tests in the both pre-test and post-test, but it’s difficult to come up with the first weakness because it is a confounding variable but the second weakness could be solved by increasing the research participants if possible, that seems impossible.
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