A 1982 bilingual-education teacher-training packet asserts, citing Krashen, that repetitive drill and grammar-focused instruction are ineffective for second language acquisition¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · theoretical r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 1982 · checked against its sources 2026-10-14 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on an ERIC document (a report, conference paper or thesis). It is kept because 11 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The packet asserts, citing Krashen, that repetitive drill and a focus on grammar are ineffective teaching devices for second language acquisition. → Calderon 1982

q1 i? Both theory and practical experience confirm that repetitive drill and focus on grammar are ineffective teaching devices, and grammar approaches shown ineffective for adults are even less effective for children. → Calderon 1982

Evidence¶

Calderon 1982¶

Calderon, Margarita; And Others. (1982). Methods and Techniques for Communicative Competence in Bilingual Education, Packet II. Language Proficiency Acquisition, Assessment, and Communicative Behavior, Series B. Student Edition. Bilingual Education Teacher Training Packets. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED226607

q2 · i? · theoretical · r1

The packet's Rationale section asserts, citing Krashen (1981a), that "repetitive drill and focus on grammar are inef- fective teaching devices". This is an authorial assertion attributed to theory and practical experience, not a reported study; no data are presented.

"it has been confirmed by both theory and practical experiences that repetitive drill and focus on grammar are inef- fective teaching devices (Krashen, 1981a)"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Comprehensible input alone is insufficient for acquisition of high levels of grammatical proficiency — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it

• Comprehensible input in natural language contexts is presented as essential to second language acquisition — related

• Student-centered writing environments are argued to lower anxiety, increase confidence, and provide natural language contexts — related
• Monitoring significantly improves a second language learner's accuracy on learnable rules (subject-verb agreement, regular past tense) in the most monitored style — reports the opposite
• Error analysis has stated limitations: overattention to errors, overstressing production data, failure to account for avoidance, and language-specific focus — related
• Most teachers in China's middle schools used traditional grammar-focused methods in the late 1980s — related
• Grammatical skill is not the focus of Second Language Acquisition, per the study's synthesis of SLA theories and methods — related
• Mental representation is not amenable to direct explicit instruction because UG and parsers operate only on input data — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The ZPD is falsely equated with Krashen's i+1 and with scaffolding in second language studies — related
• Automatization of L2 skills requires extensive practice in a consistent environment, not repetition of grammar rules as in traditional exercises — reports the opposite
• Explicit L2 grammar instruction leads to larger learning effects than implicit instruction, as reported in the reviewed synthesis literature — reports the opposite
• Explicit teaching of grammar rules enhances their learning, and rules are learned faster and better when repeated in communicative tasks — reports the opposite
• Successes of form-focused manipulation of input in adult L2 are illusory with respect to linguistic competence, affecting only performance — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Informal evidence that adults do not automatically process input to develop competence reopens the role of grammar instruction (as reported by the bibliography, citing Terrell) — reports the opposite
• A 1999 conference paper reports, citing Ellis and LaPorte (1997), that instruction has little or no effect on the route of L2 acquisition — related
• Practice of grammar rules improves only the practiced skill, showing skill specificity of L2 automatization — related
• Grammar instruction and skill drills show little carryover to composition success — related
• Effects of linguistic comprehension instruction differ by outcome domain: small for vocabulary and grammar, moderate for narrative and listening comprehension — related
• Explicitly learned L2 rules can be automatized through systematic practice after a metalinguistic criterion is reached — reports the opposite
• Form-focused instruction can contribute to the acquisition of second language implicit knowledge, as shown in studies measuring learners' free production — reports the opposite
• Task repetition can be used as a form of integrative planning in language learning and teaching — related
• Traditional form-focused instruction produces significant gains in production but not in comprehension — related
• Processing instruction produces significant gains in both sentence-level comprehension and production — related
• Practice defined as meaningful language use plus effortful practice of difficult features is beneficial and even essential for second language acquisition — reports the opposite
• Purely mechanical drills are of limited use because they do not train learners to conceptualize a meaning and express it linguistically — related