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- L1 Grammar Instruction in Primary SchoolPublication . Cardoso, Adriana; Pereira, SusanaIn Portugal, the traditional practices of L1 grammar instruction essentially involve declarative knowledge, which the student integrates in a way that is dissociated from the social uses of the language. These practices are based on the identification of categories and memorization of labels or definitions and involve 159 activities such as questionnaires on texts and training exercises (Cardoso, Leite, Pereira & Silva 2018; Ferreira 2012, 2014). Some recent studies have shown that there is an alternative way of grammar instruction. New approaches abound both nationally and internationally, namely: grammar instruction in context (Weaver, 2018); grammar didactic sequences (Camps & Zayas 2006; Pereira 2010); new grammar (Nadeau & Fisher, 2006); grammar laboratories (Duarte 2008; Silvano & Rodrigues, 2010; Costa et al. 2011; Silvano & Rodrigues 2010); observation and manipulation of data (Tisset 2008); and language awareness (Denham & Lobeck 2010). In this symposium we present some didactic experiments implemented in primary school (ages 6 to 10) which fall under this innovative line of grammar instruction (Santos, Cardoso & Pereira 2014; Pereira, Santos, Pinto, Silva & Cardoso 2016; Gonçalves, in prep.; Soares, in prep.). These studies involve the construction and implementation of didactic pathways based on seven guiding principles: (i) contextualization of grammar activities; (ii) use of grammatical terminology as a tool and not as an end in itself; (iii) adequacy of activities to the stages of students’ language development; (iv) promoting the discovery and exploration of language; (v) spiral progression of grammatical contents; (vi) promotion of metalinguistic activity; (vii) mobilization of language awareness and (meta)linguistic knowledge in the production of oral and written texts (Sim-Sim, 1998; Costa, Cabral, Santiago & Viegas, 2011; Camps & Milian 2000; Santos, Cardoso & Pereira, 2014; Pereira, Santos, Pinto, Silva & Cardoso, 2016). With the dissemination of these studies, we intend to make available resources that can be used in the classroom and encourage the development of more research in this field.
- Metalinguistic activity in higher education: Thinking about wordsPublication . Cardoso, Adriana; Pereira, Susana; Leite, TeresaThis study investigates the metalinguistic activity of students attending the second year of the Bachelor’s degree in Basic Education, which provides the credits required to apply to masters on Pre-school Education (3 to 5 years) and Teaching in 1st and 2nd Cycles of Basic Education (6 to 10 years and 10 to 12 years, respectively). Students were engaged in a multiple-choice quiz which involved the identification of the syntactic categories of words (20 questions, each with 3 possible answers). On the basis of the content analysis of students’ collaborative talk, the study aims at: (i) identifying students’ conceptions about syntactic categories; (ii) analysing the strategies used to identify the syntactic category of words (morphological, syntactic, semantic criteria); (iii) suggesting instruction guidelines to promote the development of students’ syntactic awareness in higher education. Data collected includes audio recording of 30 groups peer-to-peer interaction and quiz scores. The results show that metalinguistic activity emerges at different levels (see Fontich 2016; Camps et al. 2000): declarative knowledge is involved, for instance, in the memorization of the intensive and extensive properties of the syntactic categories (see Excerpt (1)), whereas procedural knowledge arises in the strategies used to identify the syntactic category of words (see Excerpt (2)). Other variables will be explored in the triangulation of data, such as the quality of the talk (Mercer, 1996; Fernández, Wegerif, Mercer & Rojas-Drummond 2001) and group dynamics (Corcelles & Castelló, 2015).