Teaching learnable grammar

Language teachers know only too well that learners do not always learn what they are taught, nor do they learn as fast as they might. In their attempt to cope with this problem, busy with heavy classroom and preparation work, teachers tend to rely ever more closely on official programmes and methodologies. Yet these are often organised according to established tradition rather than fresh scientific evidence. Failure among L2 learners is quite common, and can of course be due to many different factors, both linguistic and extra-linguistic. In this chapter, we wish to contribute to the rapidly growing body of language teaching research, which aims at identifying constraints on learning. In particular, we will discuss two factors which we believe crucially affect the learning of grammar: Which linguistic structures should be targeted for instruction? How should they be treated in class