The beliefs of primary education teachers regarding writing and grammar instruction

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a study on the beliefs of eight primary-education teachers in Catalonia (Spain) regarding writing instruction and its relationship with grammar instruction. The declared practices of four second-grade primary teachers and four fourth-grade primary teachers from six different educational centers of the Barcelona metropolitan area were analyzed through a semi-structured interview, which was analyzed following a mixed-method approach. The results of the analysis show that teachers' beliefs about teaching writing revolve around how to manage the writing tasks in the classroom and that their beliefs about the relationship between teaching writing and grammar are based on sentence grammar (as opposed to textual grammar). These beliefs are considered evidence of epistemological and methodological obstacles to teaching writing and grammar in an integrated way.