From Instruction to Output: Teacher and Student Beliefs about Advanced-Level English Grammar Acquisition

This thesis examines the beliefs of teachers and advanced students regarding the nature and acquisition of advanced English grammar. Its main purpose is to discover whether instruction at this high level of proficiency is supported by shared beliefs or negatively affected by diverging expectations, particularly in relation to instructional dichotomies (e.g., explicit and implicit methods), corrective feedback, and the role of metalinguistic terminology. The research aims to address a perceivable gap in literature, which analyses teacher and student cognition in grammar instruction, but has not yet focused specifically on advanced levels of proficiency. The analysis identifies both overlaps and divergences in teacher and student beliefs. Both groups agree that an acquisition-rich classroom and output opportunities are essential for achieving spontaneous use, and they find similar advanced structures (tenses, conditionals, inversions) challenging. Conflicts concern methods: students rate the teacher's rule explanation much higher compared to teachers themselves. Conversely, while all teachers endorse using metalinguistic terms actively, students generally disagree and report unnecessary confusion notably in feedback. Students also strongly disagree that correction is demotivating (without a clear...