English abstract
The current study investigates the teachers' cognition and practice of inductive grammar teaching in Omani lower secondary state schools besides exploring the factors that influence the development of teachers' own pedagogical practices. Grammar being a vital part of language learning that affects all major language skills, it is not clear if the recommended inductive grammar teaching strategy is practiced by Omani teachers as it is crucial for devising further remedial or improvement action plans. This study is an exploratory qualitative case study which utilizes two main qualitative instruments for data collection: classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. Six participant teachers from Al Dhahira province are selected for the study. Each teacher goes through three stages of the data collection process, which are initial interview, classroom observation and final interview. The data analysis is carried out by applying content analysis for observations and grounded theory for interviews. The results show that the teachers believe that grammar teaching is crucial for language learning, but although they acknowledge the merits of inductive grammar teaching, most of them are found to prefer deductive grammar teaching. However, the teachers are found to predominantly apply the first stage of both strategies and to neglect the other three subsequent stages. The teachers attribute their current practices in teaching to the contextual factors of students' language level, time constraints, nature of specific grammar teaching item, load of curriculum, and students' preferences or needs. The teachers do not seem to have thoroughly understood the stages of both deductive and inductive approaches. The findings imply that the teachers need comprehensive training sessions on grammar teaching theories and strategies including the practical aspects of the strategies.
