Abstract:

The objectives of this project is to identify the most favorable method (Discovery Learning or PPP (Presentation Practice Production) to teach English grammar to adult learners of English, as well as the reaction of the teaching/learning process of these two methods. The study was based on a qualitative research design with a naturalist/interpretative paradigm. This is an action research project with control and experimental groups with participant observation as a technique and field notes and post-tests as tools. Students currently studying third and eighth semester in the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the University of Colima were the participants of this study. Two sessions were used per group to teach according to the methods and other two sessions were needed to apply the tests. The group average, the median and the mode as quantitative data collected from the post-tests suggest that that the PPP is more adequate to teach English grammar to adults. Regarding the qualitative data gathered from the field notes it can be observed that students had a better performance with the PPP method in terms of motivation and attention. Consequently, it can be inferred that PPP could be more suitable to teach English grammar to adults if performed in a longer period of time.

Keywords:

Inductive, deductive, grammar teaching, teaching methods, PPP, discovery learning.