Digital grammar – grammar exercises in web versions of textbooks

Abstract

In this article, the grammar exercises in the web versions of six textbooks have been examined in order to discuss how grammar learning changes when the classroom is hybridized. In 2021 the Swedish goverment made an official report which states that web-based learning materials are becoming more and more common, and the publishers emphasize that the grammar exercises in the web versions of the books are self-correcting. In this article, the design of all exercises in digital textbooks’ grammar chapters have been examined. The exercises have also been categorized in three themes: what the learning object of the exercise is, what linguistic material the student is given to practice on, and how the grammatical metalanguage is used in the exercise. The results show that the digital exercises mimic the exercise structures found in printed textbooks. The typical exercise teaches the learner a specific grammatical structure. The grammatical structure is practiced in a number of context-free sentences. The student never needs to use the metalanguage, only to read and understand it. The results are in contrast to current grammar didactic research, which highlights that students need to encounter grammar in context, and that students need to use the metalanguage them­selves in conversation (Myhill et al., 2012a; Newman & Watson, 2020). The digital textbooks have not been didactically designed to function in a hybridized classroom (Holm Sørensen & Tweddell Levinsen, 2019), but use the same didactics as in the physical textbooks. The self-correcting exercises do provide quick feedback on the student’s knowledge, but do not work when there are multiple possible solutions.