Pre-service teachers’ experiences of learning grammar to support EAL/D learners

In South Australia, pre-service teachers require a sound knowledge of grammar to deploy the Learning English: Achievement and Proficiency (LEAP) Levels, an assessment, monitoring and reporting tool designed to inform programming and planning for English as an Additional Language and Dialect (EAL/D) students. However, research shows that many pre-service teachers do not have strong Metalinguistic Awareness (MA). In response, a series of five videos was produced to explicitly teach pre-service teachers the grammar needed to deploy LEAP, titled: A beginner’s guide to functional grammar. This article reports on the experiences of those pre-service teachers working with these instructional videos. Quantitative data were gleaned from pre- and post- quizzes that sought to test pre-service teachers’ (n=28) knowledge of grammar. Overall, the scores on the pre- and post-quiz results demonstrate a statistically significant difference, with a marked increase of five-point-five points on a 28-point scale following their engagement with the videos. Ultimately, this article reports on the success of teaching strategies used to increase pre-service teachers’ knowledge of certain areas of grammar, and points to future directions for working with and supporting EAL/D students through LEAP.