The Double Nullification

Grammar Teaching at an Epistemic Crossroads

Abstract

This paper identifies a problem associated with the teaching of grammar. As content included in the Buenos Aires middle school curricular designs for the subject Language Practices, as well as in those of the university degree of the Faculty of Humanities at the National University de Mar del Plata, it would be expected that both levels would show significant degrees of consistency in terms of the definitions, assumptions and orientations of the discipline that they include. The qualitative analysis (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011) of a series of relevant curricular documents to measure such degrees allows us to postulate the hypothesis that, far from the desirable horizon, each level nullifies (i.e., places in the null curriculum (Eisner 1978 [1994], Posner 1998) important portions of what the other demands. Thus, it is possible to identify two epistemically distinct conceptions of grammar, associated with two educational levels whose curricular designs seem to be locked in a truncated dialogue, a metaphor elaborated following the spirit of Camilloni's contribution (2014).Considered in its entirety, the paper exposes the extent of the problem in its first three sections, offers in the fourth section and in an appendix a concrete contribution, in terms of pedagogical intervention, to initiate discussions around possible solutions, and reserves the fifth section to present the conclusions.