This chapter discusses different ways that grammar has been viewed, and answers questions such as: Is there always just one grammatical form that’s correct? and How do linguists and lay people think about grammar? The chapter reviews different ways of understanding and investigating grammar learning such as pedagogical grammar, systemic functional linguistics, contrastive analysis, CALF (complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency), language-related episodes, and languaging. The chapter then explores several issues that are specific to grammar learning, such as rule-learning and developmental stages. In particular, it discusses processability theory, teachability theory, and communicative competence. The chapter continues by examining possible answers to the question What’s the best way to teach grammar? The chapter includes the traditional, explicit approach to grammar instruction, and continues with other approaches that are more communicative. Different approaches include proactive and reactive grammar teaching, isolated and integrated form-focused instruction, focused and unfocused tasks, and concept-based instruction.

Chapter 4 discusses foundational studies linking theoretical findings in second language acquisition and classroom research. The first part of the chapter presents the linguistic background for adverb placement in English and in French within the Principles and Parameters framework of Universal Grammar and then focuses on intervention studies on the acquisition of verb movement and adverb placement in English as a second language by Francophone children in Montreal. The second part of the chapter focuses on question formation in English, the developmental sequences learners of English go through in the acquisition of questions in English, and Pienemann’s Processability Theory, which has been the impetus for important studies on the acquisition of question formation in English as a second language.

This chapter provides an in-depth look at Arabic second language acquisition (SLA) by reviewing past and present approaches to teaching and how research into SLA has resulted in a number of hypotheses that relate directly to acquisition of Arabic as a second or foreign language. The account here is very rich in data that provide a substantive background for application and experimentation. A persistent challenge for Arabic is how to measure achievement and proficiency. Alhawary reviews Arabic testing strategies and how they fit into the overall picture of assessment. Blending the teaching of spoken and written Arabic has been a particular problem for the field, and Alhawary dedicates the last part of his chapter to evaluation of attempts to teach variation, underscoring the difficulties and challenges that face teachers, students, and materials developers.