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A fair amount has been written about how grammar rules should be presented. One issue is whether rules should be given "directly" (deductive), or whether students should be asked to figure out the rules for themselves (inductive). Another issue is sequence--which rules should be presented first, and/or emphasized more. I will restrict my comments on these issues to the implications second language acquisition theory make for these questions.
1. THE DEDUCTIVE-INDUCTIVE ISSUE
This issue was one of some concern in the second language acquisition pedagogical literature for many years. For many scholars and teachers, deductive teaching seemed much more reasonable--why make students guess the rule? Present a clear explanation and have them practice until the rule is "internalized". Cognitive-code teaching, as well as grammar-translation, are examples of the "rule-first" deductive approach.
Proponents of inductive teaching argued that the best way to insure learning was for the student to work out the rule himself. Inductive teaching is very much like rule-writing in linguistics. The learner is given a corpus and has to discover the regularities.
Before proceeding to some of the research bearing on this issue, it is important to clarify one major point: both inductive and deductive learning are learning. Neither have anything directly to do with subconscious language acquisition. Inductive learning bears a superficial resemblance to acquisition, and has occasionally been confused with acquisition in the literature. As Table 4.6 indicates, both inductive
Table 4.6 Acquisition and inductive learning:
similarities and differences
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Acquisition Inductive Learning
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Data first, rule follows Data first, rule follows
Rule is subconscious Rule is conscious
Focus on meaning Focus on form
Slow progress May occur quickly
Requires large amounts of data May occur after exposure to
small amount of data
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