Exploring Learners' Beliefs on Grammar Learning: Importance and Preferred Methods

Learners' beliefs are considered an essential factor that impacts foreign or second language learning. Moreover, learners' beliefs about the importance of grammar learning and grammar learning approaches are involved in an ongoing debate in applied linguistics. Therefore, the present study investigated learners' beliefs about the importance of grammar learning, how learners prefer to learn grammar (explicitly or implicitly), and why. 172 Saudi male EFL college students completed a survey. Among them, 24 students participated in four focus-group interviews. The quantitative data from the survey were collected, and the emerging themes from the qualitative data were determined. The findings show that grammar learning is important or very important to most learners. Around two-thirds of the learners preferred learning grammar explicitly, whereas around one-third preferred implicit grammar learning. Learners reported different beliefs about their preferences for grammar learning approaches.