Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar teaching

Although formal instruction in second language (L2) teaching has been extensively researched in the last 20 years, this work tells us little about the actual processes of grammar teaching as these are perceived by teachers. At the same time, educational research has shown that much can be learned about the nature of instruction through the study of teacher cognition—the store of beliefs, knowledge, assumptions, theories, and attitudes about all aspects of their work which teachers hold and which have a powerful impact on teachers’ classroom practices. Studies of teacher cognition have also begun to appear in the field of L2 teaching in recent years, yet formal instruction, inexplicably, has received little attention. This paper makes a case for research on teacher cognition in grammar teaching. Such research, which focuses on understanding how teachers approach formal instruction, and why, can tell us much about the nature of grammar teaching as teachers perceive it, information which can be put to effective use in teacher education and development programmes.