Dr. Robert Di Donato is Associate Professor and Chair of the Dept of German, Russian, and East Asian Languages at Miami University, Oxford Ohio and co-author of Deutsch Na Klar and a forthcoming German telecourse called Fokus Deutsch from the Annenberg/CPB Project and WGBH Boston. He received ACTFL's Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education in 1991 and is well-known for his keynote addresses, workshops, and in-service teacher training sessions.

"Student Attitudes Toward the Study of Grammar In attempting to assess the role of grammar in language study, I decided to go directly to the consumers of that grammar - the students themselves - to learn about their attitudes toward grammar. While instructors differ greatly in their opinions on the importance of grammar study in communicative language teaching and even more so in their approaches to teaching grammar, students do not always share the instructor's view of the role of grammar in their language learning. How do students feel about studying grammar when learning a language? How important is it to them? How do they go about studying it? What kinds of exercises and activities help them in their acquisition of grammar? To find out the answers to these questions, I surveyed students of German in three different classes, two beginning 101 classes and one German 111 class for students who have had some previous German before beginning study at the university. Though this survey was by no means scientific, it can provide some interesting insights into the way students think about and approach grammar in their language study While these responses may be interesting as a profile of three German classes and their attitudes toward grammar study, do they have any implications for the classroom? It is clear that students feel that grammar acquisition is important. They don't always like it, but they recognize that it is necessary. It is also clear that the mention of the word "grammar" sends chills up many students' spines. Students also feel that specific types of exercises and/or activities are either useful or not useful when learning grammar. The responses of the students in this survey may have been influenced by a number of factors including the teaching style of the instructor in their present class, their own learning style, the emphasis placed on grammar in the language curriculum, whether or not students have studied a language previous to this one, among many others. But I think that we can use such information in attempting to assist students in their study of grammar. Researchers studying students' attitudes toward grammar study recommend that teachers survey their own students as to their beliefs with regard to this topic. I wholeheartedly second that suggestion.

Let me simply state what it has done in my own case:

1. It has given me the opportunity to select or create the types of materials that have a better fit with the way my students learn grammar;
2. It has given me insights into the way my students learn grammar so that I can focus on the techniques and strategies that are helpful to them and jettison those that may be unproductive;
3. Since grammar study for some is a fearful enterprise, I strive to lessen the fear some students experience through individual consultation and intervention techniques, for example.
4. I am now more inclined to focus on other avenues of delivering grammar instruction such as grammar through reading or listening in addition to targeting grammar for production;
5. I continually reassess the amount of time and level of importance devoted to grammar instruction depending on the particular class I am teaching; and finally,
6. I now rely on other students more as grammar resources and not just on myself or the text I am using. Results of student surveys with regard to grammar study will in all likelihood vary from instructor to instructor. What will emerge, however, despite these differences, is potentially a new attitude toward grammar on the part of both students and instructors. "