The grammar teaching and its effectiveness have been at the centre of several studies, where it has been observed that learning a new language is often facilitated by the proficiency in its grammatical elements.
The purpose of this study is, on the one hand, to better understand how teachers in Sweden teach grammar in French as a foreign language (FLE). On the other hand, we have also studied the attitude of teachers and students towards the teaching of grammar and observed the pedagogical approaches adopted in the textbooks of FLE for the teaching of grammar.
A qualitative method was used for this study. Interviews with four teachers teaching French, nine observation sessions during FLE to see closely the methods used to teach grammar and questionnaires distributed to students learning French as a foreign language in 9th grade. In addition, two textbooks for class 7 were selected to examine the grammatical approaches expressed in the grammar exercises.
From the responses received during the interviews, we can see that teachers' attitudes towards the importance of grammar are very positive, but they believe that grammar needs to be stated more clearly in the curriculum and the CERC. Our data show also that teachers in French prefer to include grammar through explicit rather than implicit instruction, and that they use explicit, inductive, or deductive grammar instruction to provide better understanding to learners.
The 15 answers to the questionnaire allowed us to understand that most studentswho participated have a positive attitude towards the role of French grammar and that they needto know grammar to speak French. The results of the questionnaire also showed that studentsprefer deduction-based teaching to learn the grammar of the target language.
As for the two textbooks, they do not follow the same didactic approaches. In the textbook La Nouvelle Chouette B, the learner is led to discover grammatical notions through a support text or corpus and a series of exercises, and this is guided by the teacher. However, we find that the Arc en Ciel 7 textbook follows an explicit and deductive approach because a grammar rule is always stated and explained to students in French and Swedish with some supporting examples, at the beginning of each chapter. Then, the students do a series of exercises where they learn to apply the grammar rule.