Beliefs of university students of Spanish as a foreign language about instruction with cognitive grammar

Abstract

Analyzing students' beliefs regarding the learning process in general and grammar in particular is central to second language acquisition (Hrgović, 2012). Therefore, this study, conducted with 11 Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE, for its acronym in Spanish) students at a Lithuanian university, seeks to identify the informants' beliefs regarding the grammar instruction they received prior (with various teaching methodologies) and during the study (with a cognitive-based instruction) and their willingness to continue using cognitive grammar. The results show a more favorable view of the cognitive-based instruction, although the statistical test reveals that its effect does not significantly influence the informants' beliefs. Furthermore, the informants show a predisposition to continue using cognitive grammar to learn grammar.