the effects of multiple intelligences (focus on musical, visual, and linguistic) and direct instruction on learning grammar: a case on iranian efl students at elementary level

1.0 overview it seems that grammar plays a crucial role in the area of second and foreign language learning and widely has been acknowledged in grammar research. in other words, teaching grammar is an issue which has attracted much attention to itself, and a lot of teachers argue about the existence of grammar in language teaching and learning. this issue will remind us a famous sentence from an english poet, shakespeare, “to be or not to be, this is the problem”. for many years language teaching was equated with grammar teaching ( nassaji & fotos, 2011). it was believed that language was basically composed of grammar rules and knowing those rules would be sufficient for learners to acquire the language. ( nassaji & fotos, 2011). in addition, many scholars (lewis, 1986 & hannan, 1989) have also given support to grammar instruction in esl and efl teaching and learning. according to hannan (1989), grammar is highly valuable as an important part of the study of language, of ideas, and of writing. moreover, he points out that grammar reflects the power and order of the human mind and it also helps us to understand the diversity of human culture. no one seriously asks the need for language students to develop a good control of learning grammar. according to ashley hastings and brenda murphy (2004), those who study english as a second or foreign language in order to use it in work or study, will find themselves at a serious disadvantage if their grammar is so weak that they cannot express themselves clearly and effectively. apparently, the weaker grammar is, the more introverted person will be. in addition, doughty & williams, and thornbury, (1998) claim that grammar is being rehabilitated and recognized for an essential, inescapable component of language use and language learning. 3 however, the necessity of teaching grammar is obvious for everyone these days, the question of how grammar is to be taught in order to be long-term , efficient, related to real life, and suitable for all learners with different learning style is at the heart of many researchers. the place and type of grammatical instruction within language learning has been the subject of language acquisition research and discussion for at least 40 years (ellis, 2001). as anning(1991)suggests, children are unique in what they bring to the learning experience but tend to draw on the same kinds of learning strategy. it means that we must think of learners as having individual differences and teacher must consider their learning style (dunn, 2000) and different intelligences (gardner, 1993). bas (2009) asserts, teachers must use modern teaching methods in their classroom in order to create an atmosphere in which pay attention to learners with different learning style. it is essential that the learning atmosphere must be “student-centered” so that the students can do the activities on their own or in other words, adopt the responsibilities of their own learning (abbott & ryan, 1999; bas, 2008; brooks & brooks, 1999; yurdaku, 2004). in this regard, it seems that among all kinds of teaching methods, direct instruction (engelmann, 1931) and multiple intelligences (gardner, 1983) are the two opposite pole based on their features. therefore, in this study, the researcher makes use of multiple intelligences and direct instruction as a means of teaching grammar; and hopefully, each of these instructions would be expected to help the learners’ learning grammar. 1.1statement of the problem zahedi (2014) believes that based on the her experiences in different foreign language institutes, the main problem of students in speaking is grammar. 4 as zahedi and ghapanchi (2014) assert, grammar has always been taught in a way that students show no interest to learn. some teachers focus on language forms presentation and explain the grammar rules and practice through drilling hold a traditional view of language teaching, while others prefer to teach grammar in the same way children learn their mother tongue. thus, learning grammar has always been the most important obsession for students and learning it efficiently has been an unreachable dream as well. thus, this study is likely to remove this obsession and make learning grammar easy for different learners with different learning styles. there have been many studies (e.g., pishghadam& moafian, 2008; hosseini, 2003; iranmanesh, 2005; motallebzade and manoochehri, 2008; zarei and mohseni, 2012) concerning multiple intelligences in iran, nevertheless, none of them has observed the effect of multiple intelligences and direct instruction on learning grammar. thus what the current study intends to do is to observe the effects of the two mentioned methods (multiple intelligences and direct instruction) on efl students’ learning grammar at elementary level. 1.2 significance of the study in recent years, teaching grammar traditionally and directly or regarding the multiple intelligences and indirectly has received so much attention to it (nazari, 2012). according to ellis (2009), indirect instruction provides learners with conditions under which they can infer the rules without awareness. thus, the result will be internalizing the pattern without having their attention focused on. on the other hand, direct instruction involves teaching a certain rule during the learning process and provides learners with the direct awareness of that rule (dekeyser, 1995). 5 as rothstein (2009) states, language teachers need to think how they can make grammar fun to learn really, really fun, and memorable and meaningful. thus, based on what was said, and due to the fact that english language plays an important role in educational system of iran and much of attention is given by people and society, the findings of the present may hopefully provide some opportunities to look differently at instruction. actually, it may show a clear way to the teachers for choosing the best method for teaching grammar. 1.3 purpose of the study this study aims to implement the two methods: multiple intelligences (focus on musical, visual, and linguistic) and direct instruction on iranian efl elementary students to identify the effects of each of the mentioned methods on learning grammar and to test which of the mentioned intelligences benefit grammar more. 1.4 research questions in this study five questions are to be answered. 1. is there any significant differences among the students’ learning grammar in three experimental groups (multiple intelligences) and a control group (direct instruction)? 2. does visual intelligence have any effect on the students’ learning grammar? 3. does musical intelligence have any effect on the students’ learning grammar? 4. does linguistic intelligence have any effect on the students’ learning grammar? 5. which of the three intelligences group has benefited the most from grammar instruction? 1.5 research hypotheses 6 the following research hypotheses were formulated based on the research questions: h0.1 there is no significant difference among the experimental groups and the control group with respect learning grammar. h0.2 visual intelligence has no significant impact on the students’ learning grammar. h0.3 musical intelligence has no significant impact on the students’ learning grammar. h0.4 linguistic intelligence has no significant impact on the students’ learning grammar.