An Exploration of Teachers Beliefs about the Role ofGrammar in Iranian High Schools and Private Language Ins titutes

This study was an attempt to explore the beliefs of iranian eflteachers about the role of grammar in english languageteaching in both state schools and private language institutes.data were collected through a questionnaire deve loped byburgess and etherington (2002), which consisted of i i mainsubscales and was divided into two sections. the fi rst sectiondealt with approaches to grammar teaching and the second withstudent and teacher difficult ies with grammar. an independentsample z-test was used on all the eleven subscales to check thedifferences among teachers' beliefs in both state and privatelanguage schools. responses from 117 english languageteachers from both settings indicated that they appreciate thevalue of grammar and its role in language teaching. however,their beliefs were significantly different in three areas: explicitteaching of grammar, the role of instruction versus exposure,and presentation of grammar through authentic texts