The Practice of Teaching Grammar in EFL Classrooms: The Case of Grade 11 in Some Selected Preparatory Schools in Debre Berhan Town

This study investigates the practice of teaching grammar in English Language Teaching (ELT) classrooms, focusing on grade eleven students in two preparatory schools in Debre Berhan, Ethiopia. The research highlights the crucial role of grammar in language acquisition, particularly within the framework of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), which has gained prominence over traditional methodologies. Despite the endorsement of CLT, findings indicate that many teachers continue to rely on structural approaches, limiting students' communicative competence. Employing a mixed-methods approach, data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observations involving 21 English teachers and 592 students. The finding of the study revealed that English language teachers were teaching grammar communicatively by using both inductive and deductive approaches of teaching grammar. They teach grammar lessons with form and meaning interactively. This result was crosschecked by the three tools of data collection and even it had witness from each data gathering tool. To the contrary, the teachers face the following challenges in teaching grammar: the approach of the textbook is not good to make students to understand the grammar points clearly at a given period of time. So, it needs more time, teachers also faced challenge to teach grammar communicatively due to high tendency of students to learn grammar in structural approach and the teachers are incapable to make students to understand grammar as the students have no background knowledge of grammar and they do not have their own methods of learning grammar. Besides, the classroom data showed that all of the teachers’ talk dominated the class. This is because the students were not motivated and actively participated while the teachers were teaching grammar and also the majority of the teachers did not manage the students’ activities in the classrooms. Moreover, teachers’ interview data showed that while teachers utilize both inductive and deductive methods, challenges persist, including inadequate instructional materials, low student motivation, and an emphasis on grammar for standardized testing rather than meaningful communication. The study concludes that improving grammar teaching practices requires a shift towards more interactive, student-centered approaches, promoting active participation, and incorporating diverse instructional resources. Finally, the teachers are recommended to adopt communicative approach of teaching grammar in ELT classrooms.