| Despite their apparent differences, both the U.S. Department of Education and the Michigan Department of Education have formulated visions of what constitutes a "highly qualified" teacher. Their views are premised on the thinking that teacher training and professional development opportunities will give teachers research knowledge, which will bring worthwhile change in teachers' instructional practices. It is argued here that teachers are expected to teach simultaneously within the behaviorist paradigm---the federal notion of the teacher as the deliverer of content---and the constructivist paradigm---the Michigan vision of the reflective teacher who teaches from a learner-centered perspective. This study investigates how middle school and high school foreign language teachers in a suburban public school district in Metropolitan Detroit teach grammar to their students, and how they justify their practices. Using a combination of research methods, the review of the literature was triangulated with the qualitative results (video observations, individual and group interviews) and the quantitative results (the ethnographic survey) to strengthen the findings. The findings reveal a picture of teachers who tend to teach grammar concepts explicitly (often in English), and treat grammar as course content, rather than as a means to an end---i.e., communicative competence. At the same time, however, teachers use many communicative strategies---not based on any particular awareness of research; but based on their personal experiences in teaching. Peer observation emerged as having important implications for further study. |
