L2 pre-college students taught X-Word Grammar showed larger improvement in verb construct accuracy than students taught traditional grammar, borderline significant¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-11-02 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Over three months, the X-Word Grammar group's verb construct error rate fell from 14.21% to 8.93% while the traditional group's fell only from 13.56% to 13.44%, a difference the t-test put at p=0.056, borderline significant. → Livingston et al. 2018

Evidence¶

Livingston et al. 2018¶

Livingston, S., Toce, A., Casey, C., Montoya, F., Hart, B. R., & O'Flaherty, C. (2018). Effect of X-Word Grammar and Traditional Grammar Instruction on Grammatical Accuracy. English Language Teaching, 11(3). https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v11n3p119

q2 · i? · causal · r2

Two-group comparison of pre-college L2 students (N=47) placed in the traditional (N=25) or X-Word (N=22) group by the odd or even last digit of their student identification numbers over a 12-week immersion term, with error percentages computed on first drafts of essays at September and November data points. The X-Word group improved 5.25 percentage points (14.21% to 8.93%) versus 0.12 points for the traditional group, and the article reports the t-test p-value as "0.056 which is borderline significant".

"For the verb construct category, the t-test shows that the p-value is 0.056 which is borderline significant. In this category, the evidence is strong enough to believe that X-Word Grammar allowed students to show greater gain."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Syntax — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• X-Word Grammar students improved significantly more on subject-verb agreement, borderline on tense, and not significantly on aspect/verb forms — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• Sentence-pattern accuracy improved more under X-Word Grammar than traditional grammar, but the difference was not statistically significant — related
• Cross-linguistic consciousness-raising significantly improves EFL learners' recognition of subject-verb agreement errors relative to traditional grammar teaching — related
• Explicit grammar teaching outperforms implicit teaching; one review found the advantage only for complex rules, but a meta-analysis found it for simple rules too — a broader claim this one bears on