Using grammar consciousness-raising tasks to enhance students’ narrative tenses competence

Abstract Enhancing learners’ grammar competence basically improves their communication skills. Nevertheless, the question of which grammar teaching technique is highly useful for the purpose is arguable. In light of that, this study was set out to examine the effects of using grammar consciousness-raising tasks in enhancing students’ narrative tenses competence vis-à-vis the conventional method in which grammar is taught mainly through teacher explanations and sentence level practices followed by corrective feedback. To this end, the study included a total of 90 grade eleven students in the experimental and the comparison groups. In the intervention which lasted for five weeks, the experimental group participants were taught narrative tenses via consciousness-raising tasks, and the comparison group ones were taught the same grammar features via the conventional method. Tests and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect data. The findings revealed that grammar consciousness-raising tasks were more effective than the conventionally used grammar teaching method in improving students’ ability to understand and use the target grammar features. Moreover, data from the interviews showed that participants in the experimental group had positive perceptions about grammar consciousness-raising tasks. Based on the findings, it was recommended that grammar consciousness-raising tasks should be used in the teaching of grammar.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Grammar is an essential linguistic resource of the ability to use language communicatively. Nevertheless, the grammar teaching method used in most English as a foreign language context fails to equip students with the ability to effectively use grammar features for communication. This research examined the effects of teaching grammar through exposing students not just to the surfaced linguistic structures but also to the meanings and functions associated with the structures. The findings proved that students could learn better when they are given an opportunity to notice grammar features in a communicative input, and when they collaboratively find out how and why the features work or do not work in a given language use context. This way of teaching helps students to develop their own explicit knowledge and become aware of their linguistic problems through comparing their previous knowledge with that of proficient language users. This way of teaching can eventually prepare students to effectively use grammar features for communication, and the students do not have to engage in grammar practicing exercises.

Background of the study
It is a common knowledge that English is one of the most widely used languages across the world in international relations, science and technology, education, and business. In view of this fact, the education system of Ethiopia recognizes the importance of English for global interconnectivity and economic development. Although Ethiopia is a country with more than 80 languages, English becomes increasingly dominant in the spheres of education, business, and administration in the country. It is used as a medium of teaching in secondary schools and universities in the country, and even in some private primary schools, English is a language of instruction. It is also taught as a subject along with other school subjects in the context. Therefore, it is recognized in the country that having a good command of the English language is indubitably essential to achieve academic excellence. Even so, English has a foreign language status in Ethiopia.
It is clearly stated in the English language syllabus for grade 11 and 12 of the country that enhancing students' English communication skills is very important, and grammar is considered as an integral component of communication. Therefore, the syllabus advocates the teaching of grammar in the way it can improve students' communication abilities, and this is evident in the textbooks. While this is so, the actual grammar teaching practices in Ethiopia fall short of the expected standard (Gashaw, 2011).
The main goal of teaching grammar in secondary schools in Ethiopia is to help students achieve high scores in the traditional examination system in the same way as other subjects by cramming grammar rules; therefore, teachers' only recourse is the traditional language teaching approach which prioritizes form over meaning and use (Gashaye, 2012). However, in English as a foreign language context, students are usually required to use English for communication, thus grammar lessons should aim at enhancing students' communicative skills as well.
As Birhan (2018) and Amogne (2014) pointed out, university students' academic writing in Ethiopia is unsatisfactory, and this is essentially attributed to problems associated with method of instruction and students' linguistic deficiency. Grammar error is one of the main factors that hinder secondary and university students in Ethiopia from producing understandable academic texts (Abate, 2008;Amogne, 2014;Chanie, 2013;Yigzaw, 2013).

Objectives of the study
The teaching of grammar is given emphasis in Ethiopia. Even so, as noted above, most secondary and university level students in the country continue to have the problem of being able to use grammatical features effectively for communication. This casts doubt on the effectiveness of the grammar teaching technique which is being used in the context. Thus, introducing an effective grammar teaching technique is important to address the problem. In light of that, the study aimed to examine the effects of using grammar consciousness-raising tasks (GCRTs) in improving students' grammar competence. The study focused on narrative tenses (simple past, past continuous, past perfect, and present perfect). As stated in Green and Klecan-Aker (2012), narrative tenses are complex aspects of grammar, and applying them for communication requires a wide range of linguistic and cognitive abilities; in addition, the ability to comprehend and produce narrative stories increases students' academic engagement and participation, and this can eventually help them to achieve tremendous academic success. The study also intended to find out students' perceptions about GCRTs. Perceptions are beliefs or opinions that individuals have as a consequence of the way they understand and interpret things (McBride & Cutting, 2019). According to Jean and Simard (2011), being aware of students' perceptions about teaching and learning practices helps to create a conducive language learning atmosphere, and taking their subjective views for granted could possibly reduce their interest and motivation to learn.
Previous experimental investigations on GCRTs (e.g., Abay, 2021;Moradkhan & Sohrabian, 2009) are principally production based, and the interventions implemented required student participants to repeatedly produce and practice the target grammar features. In fact, Rutherford (1987) and Smith (1981) characterized consciousness-raising in terms of practicing exercises. Yet, Ellis (2002) and Long (2015) asserted that grammar practicing exercises can hardly prepare students to use grammar patterns for communication. Moreover, a comprehension rather than a production based grammar instruction caters for a more natural way of learning language; indeed, forcing learners to produce the target grammar features prematurely obstructs the learning process (Ellis & Shintani, 2014).
The present study examined the effectiveness of consciousness-raising tasks which do not include production-for-practice components common in the existing research on GCRTs, and as such, we believe that the study could contribute to the existing literature. In other words, this study tested whether or not noticing grammar features in a communicative input without practicing the features could improve students' grammar knowledge and ability. Furthermore, so far, students' perceptions about grammar consciousness-raising tasks have not been investigated adequately in the existing applied linguistic research. In fact, a case study conducted by Svalberg (2005) focused on exploring teachers' and students' perceptions about GCRTs. However, due to time constraint and inconveniences, the student participants could not voice their opinions on the matter, and their perspectives were simply inferred and generalized from their teachers' written and oral reports. The present study could fill the gap by gathering pertinent data straight from the horses' mouth. More importantly, other previous studies conducted to find out students' perception about GCRTs (e.g., Abay, 2021;Mohamed, 2004) incorporated practicing exercises, and participants' views were examined in that context.

The debate on grammar instruction
The importance of formal explicit grammar instruction has been a contentious subject for a long period of time; in fact, opinions are divided between scholars who regard the teaching of grammar as a mere waste of time and those who advocate the teaching of grammar in a systematic way (Tickoo, 2009). Most notably, Krashen (1985) argued that if students are exposed to comprehensible input containing grammar structures slightly beyond their current level, they could acquire the rules unconsciously and hence there is no need to gear their attention towards the rules. He claimed that forms which are explicitly taught do not become implicit knowledge and help merely to monitor the accuracy of spoken and written output. He concluded that comprehensible input and low affective filter are the determining variables for grammar acquisition.
Likewise, for Prabhu (1987), explicit grammar instruction is unhelpful and even can have detrimental effect on second language learning, and students acquire grammar rules when they engage in meaningful tasks incorporating the rules. Similarly, Allwright (1979) and Schwartz (1993) are not in favor of formal and explicit grammar instruction. The former concluded that language is best learned when students engage in carrying out meaning focused problem solving activities in the target language without conscious attention to linguistic features. He reiterated the application of "minimal teaching strategy" promoting learners' independence through the use of authentic tasks and learning materials. For Schwartz (1993), explicit grammar teaching does not lead to grammar acquisition, for grammar is only acquired unconsciously via exposure to the target language input.
In contrast, Gregg (1984) proved from his own experience of learning Japanese that conscious learning can result in the acquisition of some grammar forms such as past tense and gerund. Similarly, Ur (1988) argued that learners cannot absorb grammar features unconsciously through merely communicative activities, thus explicit grammar instruction is essential to assist them to develop mastery of grammar patterns. Ellis (1993Ellis ( , 2002Ellis ( , 2015 vehemently advocated explicit grammar teaching approach to help learners acquire a second language effectively. As Ellis (2002) remarked, "grammar teaching does aid L2 acquisition although not necessarily in the way teachers often think it does" (p. 167).
In a similar vein, earlier, Schmidt and Frota (1986) carried out a case study in which Schmidt participated as a co-author and subject. The study aimed to investigate the subject's conversational ability improvement in Portuguese. To this end, Schmidt was exposed to Portuguese for five months in Brazil through classroom grammar instruction and informal interactions with native speakers. The required data was gathered from diary notes that the subject kept and from the conversations which were tape recorded. The investigation revealed that despite Schmidt's repeated exposure to some linguistic forms in conversations with his interlocutors, he was unable to use the forms until he noticed them.
It seems, then, that if R [the subject] was to learn and use a particular type of verbal form, it was not enough for it to have been taught and drilled in class. It was also not enough for the form to occur in input, but R had to notice the form in the input. (Schmidt & Frota, 1986, p. 281) The case study proved that what is explicitly learned can become a part of learner's implicit knowledge. In other words, it substantiated the existence of an interface between what is learned and what is acquired. The authors underscored that students learn much when they pay conscious attention, yet they admitted that there might still be some learning without noticing. N. C. Ellis (2005) asserted that explicit grammar knowledge cannot be directly transformed into implicit knowledge, yet there is interaction between them.

Good reasons for teaching grammar
There are four fundamental reasons for teaching grammar (Algeo, 1981;Hudson, 2016): i) the primary aim of teaching grammar is to change usage in such a way that second language learners become aware of the differences between their first language and the target language, and this may help them to quit the old usage and adopt the new one; ii) grammar instruction facilitates for learners to notice new or advanced language structures, thereby broadening their grammar use repertoire; iii) grammar instruction familiarizes learners with grammatical terminologies common in writing and other language skills, and this facilitates the teaching and learning of language skills; iv) it is the means to let learners understand the nature of language as well as how the target language works. Likewise, grammar instruction can also be regarded as a means to build up academic language and familiarize students with pertinent linguistic repertoire, thereby enabling them to make associations between language form and written message (Frodesen & Holten, 2003). It also contributes to the development of students' general cognitive abilities through providing mental training which is the least focused point in the discussions of grammar instruction (Hudson, 2016).

The conventional grammar teaching method
Second language learners are generally assumed to acquire and spontaneously use grammar forms in a linear manner, which involves presentation, practice, and production (PPP) stages; however, this assumption has not been adequately and consistently substantiated by the findings of second language acquisition research conducted over the past 30 years (Ellis, 2002;Long, 2015;Nassaji & Fotos, 2011;Nunan, 1998). From the viewpoint of traditional grammar instruction, grammar is best learned deductively with memorization and pattern drilling exercises, and this way of grammar instruction is presumed to affect learners' internal learning system and foster second language acquisition (Benati, 2020). However, in the traditional approach, learners are familiarized with forms through exercises, but not how to deploy them effectively to communicate meaning in real contexts (Nunan, 1998). In the same vein, traditional grammar instruction does not adequately facilitate for students to match language forms with their functions and meanings, and this leads to students' inability to apply correct and appropriate structures in their spoken and written communication (Liamkina & Ryshina-Pankova, 2012;Thornbury, 1999).
According to Swan (2002), in most EFL context, the teaching of grammar does not aim at improving students' communicative ability; indeed, grammar is taught mainly because it is easy to teach and test; as a result, it is easy to find many students who cannot use their large stock of grammar knowledge for communication.

Grammar consciousness-raising tasks
Grammar consciousness-raising tasks (GCRTs) are grammar tasks designed to assist learners to notice and understand grammar features by developing explicit knowledge of the features through "concept forming in orientation" (Ellis, 2002). It is not always possible to provide learners with thorough and complete descriptions of the target language properties; it is, however, possible to provide learners with samples of language data along with activities as guidelines to help them to notice how grammar rules work in the data, and the broad term to describe this sort of undertaking is consciousness-raising (Willis & Willis, 1996). The authors stated that GCRTs require learners to observe, hypothesize and experiment with language, and as such the tasks enhance learners' "awareness" and "sensitivity" to linguistic forms. GCRTs make learners engage in meaning-focused grammar activities through providing grammar forms in a communicative input (Fotos, 1994). Eckerth (2008) found that GCRTs induce the activation of background knowledge and "learner-learner scaffolding" Smith (1991) characterized consciousness-raising as a means of making features of language salient as an endeavor to facilitate for learners to notice the target language models. It could be understood as "attempts to put 'flags' in the input, that is, to direct the learners' attention to particular properties of the input in the hope that they can use these flags to develop their own internal mental flags" (p. 120). The perceptual salience or the noticeability of forms can be increased without necessarily plunging into metalinguistic discussion, for example, by creating salience of the target forms through typographical conventions such as underlining, capitalizing, boldfacing, italicizing, color coding, or a combination of them (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011).
Similarly, for Rutherford (1987), consciousness-raising is largely a means of teaching language structures in a less explicit manner through discovery learning techniques rather than directly and openly presenting them. As Tickoo (2009) noted, grammar rules taught through discovery process is presumed to be readily available for use rather than the forms taught through drilling and memorizing. Therefore, it can be understood that GCRTs expose learners to the form, meaning, and use dimensions of grammar.
Consciousness-raising is fundamentally an inductive explicit approach; however, it is different from other inductive approaches or form focused instructions since it focuses exclusively on developing awareness or declarative knowledge; other inductive approaches aim at directly developing procedural knowledge or implicit knowledge (Ellis, 2015). The author asserted that consciousness-raising tasks entail "languaging" (using language to make meaning, mediate, and communicate), and in the process learners actively construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct their knowledge.
The theoretical justification for the advent of consciousness-raising is that explicit instruction is not likely to have a direct impact on implicit knowledge but has only a facilitative role, thus the ultimate goal of GCRTs is to indirectly aid the acquisition of implicit or procedural grammar knowledge needed for fluent and spontaneous communication. In relation to this, Ellis (1993) argued that for a structural syllabus to have a role in promoting second language acquisition, it should be designed to facilitate intake rather than trying in vain to directly develop implicit knowledge.
Using GCRTs facilitates the development of declarative knowledge which could aid the acquisition of implicit knowledge through a) selecting a specific grammar feature for focused attention; b) providing language data in which the target grammar structures are incorporated; c) directing students' attention towards the target grammar features; d) having students apply intellectual effort to discuss and find out how and why the grammar features work/do not work in the data; e) letting students make assumptions and draw conclusions based on their understanding of the structures; f) checking students' understanding of the target grammar forms, and providing further input if there is misunderstanding and incomplete understanding, and this may also include giving short explanation and description of the target features if necessary; g) making students speak about the rules of the target grammar features (Ellis, 2002(Ellis, , 2015. Since learners have knowledge of L1, teaching L2 through positive evidence alone is not enough (Long, 2015). Input containing positive evidence demonstrates linguistic features as used in the real world and helps to avert learners' wrong understanding of the features, thereby familiarizing learners with native speakers' way of using grammar forms. The wrong perception might result from learners' first language interference. Negative evidence, on the other hand, contains models of grammatical errors which are not common in the native speakers' input. There is also indirect negative evidence in which learners are encouraged to detect what is missing in the input by making use of their current grammar knowledge (Smith, 1991).

The debate on consciousness-raising
Consciousness-raising is not without criticism. The argument against it comes from the notion that successful grammar learning takes place only unconsciously when learners are immersed in meaning focused activities in real situations. Also, it is argued that learners acquire grammar structures on the basis of natural order of acquisition; therefore, formal explicit instruction may only hinder effective learning. Conversely, it is contended that students cannot absorb grammar features through communicative activities alone. Thus, they have to pay conscious attention to the features in order to acquire them (Schmidt, 1990(Schmidt, , 2001, and studies on a built-in syllabus indicate that children and adults acquire language morphemes in a remarkably similar order (Rutherford, 1987). Furthermore, there is a debate that GCRTs may not be appropriate for beginning proficiency level students since doing the tasks requires using the target language for interaction and negotiation, yet this is counter argued that learners can do the tasks by using their first language and can still gain conscious understanding of grammar patterns.
In general, although the way GCRTs is characterized is somewhat different in the existing literature, the goal of using the tasks is primarily to enhance and enrich learners' explicit knowledge of the grammar of the target language, and this knowledge is assumed to help learners realize their linguistic problems by comparing their knowledge with proficient language users' norms of using the grammar features. GCRTs are very much in line with noticing hypothesis in the sense that conscious learning is considered as the sine qua non of effective language acquisition. In other words, as discussed earlier, noticing can raise learners' awareness of linguistic features and hence learners continue to restructure and broaden their knowledge, and this finally can lead to the development of implicit knowledge which learners can use fluently in natural settings. Restructuring knowledge entails gaining new knowledge and modifying the existing one accordingly (McLaughlin, 1987). It is important to note that the existing literature on GCRTs emphasize the cognitive processes involved in the process of learning grammar forms; however, the importance of the tasks needs to be seen from the perspectives of the interactionist theory of language acquisition as well.

The interface issue
The interface issue sheds some light on the relationship between explicit and implicit knowledge. It deals with whether explicit knowledge changes into or simply promotes the acquisition of implicit knowledge. The issue is addressed through the non-interface, the strong interface, and the weak interface positions. The non-interface position assumes that there is no relationship between explicit and implicit knowledge and hence explicit grammar instruction has minimal role for second language acquisition (e.g., Krashen, 1985;Prabhu, 1987), whereas the strong interface position presumes that there is an interface, in that explicit knowledge directly turns into implicit knowledge through practice and hence grammar instruction needs to have practicing activities (e.g., DeKeyser, 2007;Rutherford, 1987;Smith, 1981;Ur, 1988).
According to the weak interface position, an interface exists, and explicit grammar knowledge facilitates the development of implicit grammar knowledge, and this is done through noticing and noticing the gap requiring learners to structure and restructure their knowledge (e.g., Ellis, 2015;N.C. Ellis, 2005). Proponents of the weak interface position uphold that practice helps learners to gain implicit knowledge only if the developmental readiness of all learners to acquire the target grammar features is pinpointed, which is, however, not practical in most teaching situations. Due to learnability problem associated with the way learners acquire language, explicit instruction cannot readily promote the development of implicit knowledge (Ellis, 1993). However, the author argued that explicit instruction can facilitate intake if it is based on the weak interface model of second language acquisition. GCRTs, in a contemporary sense, adopt a weak interface model of second language acquisition.

Grammar competence
Grammar competence is considered as an inherent component of communicative competence along with sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence. For Chomsky (1980), grammar competence is knowledge of language forms, meanings and their relationship, and this knowledge is wired into human mind innately. Grammar competence is language users' knowledge of grammar and their ability to apply this knowledge for communication (Hinkel & Fotos, 2002). In a similar vein, according to Widdowson (1978), competence is learners' knowledge of language, which is inferred from their actual language use.
The notion of competence has to do with a language user's knowledge of abstract linguistic rules. This knowledge has to be put into effect as behavior. It has to be revealed through performance. When it is put into effect through the citations of sentences to illustrate these rules, as is done in grammar books, then performance yields instances of usage, and abstract knowledge is manifested. (Widdowson, 1978, p. 3)

GA: Grammatical Ability
Process of how grammar consciousness-raising tasks induce grammar competence (adapted from Hudson, 2016)

Methodology
The study embraced the pragmatic worldview which underlines that the workability of an idea is determined by the outcomes of its implementation. The study used non-equivalent group pretestposttest quasi-experimental design. In order to control over confounding variables which might occur as a result of lack of random selection, the study included a comparison group with very close similarities with the experimental group.

Participants
The study involved grade eleven social science students in Merawi Secondary School in Ethiopia, and the students were sixteen to nineteen years of age. Thirty-eight female and fifty-two male altogether ninety students took part in the study. The participants were from the same first language background and had exposure to English only through formal education. They learned English as a subject and studied all other subjects in English at the level, and they could comprehend and carry out oral and written activities in English despite noticeable errors and difficulties. According to the indicators of levels of proficiency provided by Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment, the students' level of proficiency can fit into B1 (intermediate). Among twelve sections of grade eleven students in the selected government school, two sections of them were chosen through lottery sampling technique, and through the same method, the sections were labeled as comparison and experimental. As Creswell (2012) noted, experimental researchers can administer a pretest to check the sameness of the characteristics of participants. In this research context, a pretest was administered to assess the sameness of the participants in their narrative tenses competence. The distribution of the z-scores indicated that the scores were roughly normally distributed, and there were no significant outliers. Table 1, shows the means and standard deviations scores for each question items.

Data collection instruments
The tools which were employed to collect data are tests and semi-structured interviews. Through expert judgments and pilot testing, the reliability and validity of the tools were checked.

Tests
The study employed two tests (pretest and posttest) for measuring the students' narrative tenses competence. One and a half hours were allotted for each of the pretest and posttest sessions, and the students were able to finish doing the questions in the given time.
The question items consisted of multiple-choices, comprehension, gap-filling, and writing. Each of the question items of the tests was rated out of twenty five. In the multiple-choices section, students were required to complete sentences by choosing one of the four multiple choice options given. The comprehension item required the students to read and understand story passages and answer multiple-choice questions, and the gap-filling tests included short passages or stories in which verbs were given in brackets for the students to modify them into grammatical narrative tenses and fill in the blank spaces provided. For the writing test, each of the participants was made to write a short text on one of the lists of topics that they were provided with. The goal was to elicit data in which their performance of narrative tenses was examined. To this end, we used the IELTS rubrics for assessing grammatical range and accuracy in writing by modifying the scoring scales.
Language assessment needs to be undertaken by understanding two contexts such as the applied linguistic context and the measurement context (Bachman, 2004). The former facilitates to pinpoint the purpose of administering a language test, which entails measuring ability, learning progress, or use of language in real contexts, thereby designing testing tasks accordingly, whereas the latter facilitates the application of appropriate statistical measurements, and in this way it helps to make relevant inferences with regard to the relationships between numerical results and their meaning, interpretation, and use. Assessing the participants' narrative tenses competence in the study considered the two contexts stated above.

Semi-structured interviews
Face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect data about the participants' perceptions of grammar consciousness-raising tasks. The interviews were also used to find out students' perspectives on whether or not GCRTs were effective in improving their narrative tenses competence. To this end, five interviewees from the experimental group participants were randomly chosen, and content and probing questions were posed in a relatively random way since the nature of the interviews was semi-structured.
The interview questions were framed based upon the existing pertinent literature, and they were formed in the way they could elicit the required data. This process also entailed phrasing the questions in the way they would not influence the interviewees' responses. In fact, the age and cultural norms of the interviewees were also considered. The questions were originally written in English, but for the sake of the quality of the data, they were translated into the interviewees' first language, i.e. Amharic.

The reliability and validity of the instruments
Prior to the intervention, test-retest reliability was used to measure the consistency of the results of the pre-and posttests. To this end, the pretest was administered to a group of fifteen students twice in a one-week time gap, and the other group of fifteen students took the posttest twice in the same time gap as the first group, and the students in this case were not part of the main study and were not exposed to any language input. The tests contained identical instructions but their contents were different. The Cronbach's alpha test of reliability results (for the pretest, α = .886 and for the posttest, α = .852) showed that the tests were reliable. The correlation coefficient was also calculated, and the results (r = .802, P < 0.01) indicated that there was a high correlation between the two tests. In this instance, each test was rated out of 100 which was the sum total of the scores of the four question items.
The face and content validity of the tests were checked mainly through comments provided by two experts in teaching English as a foreign language. These experts have many years of teaching experience at secondary and university levels of education in the context. Based on their comments, some improvements were made. For example, the number of questions were reduced; irrelevant questions were omitted and replaced by relevant ones; some of the questions and instructions were rewritten in a simple and clear manner. Besides, as an effort to prepare valid tests for the study, we consulted the existing literature on language testing and grammar assessment (e.g., Hughes, 2003;Purpura, 2014), and part of the effort included adapting questions from a book entitled Cambridge Grammar for IELTS by Hopkins and Cullen (2007) and from other modern English grammar books. Different question items were also incorporated to assess the required competence on all aspects of narrative tenses.
Experts in the field and colleagues commented on the interview questions, and by taking into consideration their opinions and the existing pertinent literature, some revisions and changes were made. Furthermore, the questions were piloted with five students who received the consciousnessraising treatment, and based on their feedback, the questions were once again revised, and finally used to interview the other five students in the experimental group. The results of the interviews in the two sessions were compared and proved to be consistent. In such ways, the validity and the reliability of the interview questions were checked.

Procedures
The data collection procedure commenced with selecting the conveniently available school for the study, and obtaining permission from the school through a formal letter. This was followed by choosing participants and receiving their consent for participation. Then, a pretest was administered, and the data was cleaned before entering it into the SPSS program for analysis. A treatment was given for a period of five weeks. Once the treatment was given, a posttest was administered, and the results of the tests obtained before and after the treatment were compared to determine the effectiveness of the experiment. The independent samples t-test was used to analyze the data obtained from the two tests. In fact, before running the independent samples t-test, the assumptions of this statistical analysis was checked in the following way. First, the study apparently involved two independent groups of participants who were exposed to two different interventions. Second, there was only one dependent variable, i.e., grammar competence which was measured at the continuous (interval or ratio) level. Third, the participants' scores in each group were observed individually. Fourth, there were no significant outliers in the groups. Fifth, the scores were approximately normally distributed. Normality test was performed using SPSS version 26. The visual examination of their histograms, normal Q-Q and box plots indicated that there was roughly normal distribution of scores. After a posttest had been given, interviews were conducted in the students' first language, i.e. Amharic. The procedures applied to analyze the data generated from interviews include: a) transcribing the tape-recorded interviews; b) translating the data into English; c) reducing the data into a manageable quantity; d) taking significant quotes; e) developing themes; f) writing the reflections by linking them to the themes.

The intervention material
The intervention material was designed and sequenced based on the concepts of consciousnessraising tasks in Ellis (2002), Richards and Renandya (2002), and Willis and Willis (1996). It also applied input enhancement techniques as proposed by Smith (1991). The material was largely designed based on the notion that effective grammar learning takes place when learners are exposed to linguistic forms in context, and when they engage in grammar tasks which entail meaningful interaction and negotiation. The designing process entailed adapting and adopting related authentic materials containing the target grammar features. The contents of the material were taken from newspaper articles, magazines, song lyrics, grammar books, YouTube videos, and the British National Corpus (BNC). The material was piloted and modified to make it consistent with the objectives of the study and the participants' language proficiency level. For the comparison group, the existing grade eleven textbook in which the conventional grammar teaching method is manifested was used.

The intervention procedures
The intervention was initiated through introductory remarks in which participants were familiarized with the objectives to be met and the nature of the tasks or activities that they were going to carry out. In doing so, for the experimental group, a teaching material designed based on the concept of consciousness-raising tasks, and for the comparison group, the existing textbook were used. The experimental group participants were taught narrative tenses via grammar consciousness-raising tasks, and the comparison group ones were taught the same grammar features via the conventional method as explained below. The experiment took five weeks, and there were five periods in each week. The length of time for each period was forty-five minutes.
Experimental group participants were provided with language data in which the target structures were embedded and made salient through underlining or boldfacing. The data were proceeded with instructions and followed by task questions, and as such students' attentions were directed towards the target grammar points. Based on the directions provided, students attended to the highlighted grammar forms, and they exerted intellectual efforts to find out and discuss why and how the grammar rules work or do not work in the data. The grammar rules were dealt with not in isolation but as they appeared in the data. The students were also made to engage in doing grammar problem-solving tasks, for example, judging whether or not given sentences are grammatically correct, deciding the meanings of given grammar constructions, and so on. The students carried out individual, pair, group works, or combinations of them. In the meantime, they were required to formulate assumptions and conclusions about the forms, meanings and functions of the target linguistic structures. This was followed by checking students' understanding of the form, meaning, and use of the target grammar forms. This was done through having them try out the target structures to produce a sentence. When there were misunderstanding and inadequate understanding, the experimenter provided further input containing the target grammar features. Then, the students shared their guesses and inferences with the whole class. The sessions came to an end with the experimenter's confirmation and summary.
The comparison group participants were taught the same grammar features (narrative tenses) through the existing grade eleven English textbook in which the conventional teaching approach is manifested. In this vein, the experimenter explained the grammar features to the students by writing exemplary sentences on the blackboard, and the students were made to listen and take notes. This was followed by having learners engage in pattern drilling exercises such as matching, completion exercises, sentence writing and rewriting, and the like. Then, the experimenter assessed the students' activities and provided the students with oral and written corrective feedback.

Pretest results
An independent samples t-test was conducted to compare students' pretest scores on narrative tenses in different question items, and the results are shown in table 1.
The score in each question item shows the participants' performances of the target features. The pretest results demonstrate that there was no significant statistical difference between the experimental and the comparison groups in each question item. Although the experimental group scored somewhat higher in the two question items: comprehension and gap filling, and the comparison group scored a little higher in multiple choices and writing, the pretest scores indicate that there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups with regard to comprehension and gap filling (t = −0.620, df = 88, P > 0.05 and t = −1.448, df = 88, P > 0.05 respectively), and multiple choices and writing (t = 0.391, df = 88, P > 0.05 and t = 0.462, df = 88, P > 0.05, respectively).
It can also be seen from the table that the participants' scores in each question item were found to be below average. Each item was rated out of 25, but the students' results were lower than the average score (12.5). This suggests that the students' level of competence on the target grammar features was very low, and this is perhaps due to the way grammar is commonly taught in the context.

Post intervention results
Once the intervention was completed, tests were administered and an independent samples t-test was performed to compare the mean scores of the experimental and the comparison groups in each question item, and the results are presented in table 2.
As it can be seen from table 2 the experimental group achieved greater scores in multiple choices (18.9444), comprehension (19), gap filling (14.6889), and writing (13.0889). The independent samples t-test also indicated that there were statistically significant differences between the two groups in all indicators except in multiple choices. That is, experimental group significantly surpassed the comparison group in the posttest scores of each question item (P < 0.05), except in multiple choices. Although the multiple-choices scores of the experimental group (18.9444) was higher than the control group (18.555), there was no a statistically significant difference between the two groups in this question item (P > 0.05). All in all, the posttest results suggested that the GCRTs intervention was more effective than the conventional method in bringing about positive change on the students' competence of the target grammar features.

Data from interviews
Once the intervention was completed, interviews were carried out with five randomly selected interviewees. The goal was to explore their feelings and impressions of GCRTs, and to find out their  Tilahun et al., Cogent Education (2022) views on whether or not their narrative tenses competence was improved. To this end, questions were posed to each of the respondents, and the recurring meaning patterns were developed into five different themes such as interesting, cooperative, internalizable, confidence, and contextual.
The respondents expressed that learning narrative tenses via GCRTs was interesting, and they liked the instruction process. They said that they enjoyed discovering narrative tenses embedded in lyrics, appealing stories, and naturally occurring dialogues (coded as interesting). Three interviewees used words like "exciting", 'engaging, and "thought-provoking". However, the respondents admitted that they were confused at the beginning of the instruction, for they have never been taught grammar in that way.
. . . the instruction was interesting, but I should admit that I was confused at first, and I found the tasks a bit challenging. Contrary to the way I was taught grammar before, you [the experimenter] neither wrote anything on the blackboard nor did explain the target grammar features to us, and you simply let us carry out the grammar tasks on our own. But when the time went on and the instruction proceeded, I became comfortable with the teaching technique, and indeed I grew very enthusiastic towards it (Aisha, interview, March, 2022).
Concerning the effects of GCRTs on their grammar knowledge and ability, the respondents stated that the teaching technique improved their knowledge of narrative tenses and their ability to use them. Hannah felt, "if GCRTs had been used in the grammar lessons of my lower grades, I could have had good grammar knowledge and ability long before. Unfortunately, that was not the case". The respondents added that the instruction technique allowed them to actively participate and take responsibility for their own learning, and they could learn grammar better through doing the learning themselves rather than being told. Ermias described the situation by using Benjamin Franklin's famous quote: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn".
When asked whether or not doing group discussions about narrative tenses was helpful, in reply, Anna said, "two heads are better than one; the discussions helped me to learn from my classmates". Other respondents expressed that there were plenty of opportunity to work together and learn from each other (coded as cooperative).
The instruction approach could encourage teamwork, and I have realized that I could learn grammar better when I discover grammar features through discussion and negotiation with my classmates rather than through passive listening to lectures. In fact, I have come to understand that grammar bears meaning, and it is a tool to understand and express meaning not just a set of rules to be studied and memorized (Solomon, interview, March, 2022).
They pointed out that GCRTs induced a great deal of interaction and negotiation, and this is consistent with Fotos (1994) who found that GCRTs encourage greater interaction and negotiation, and lead to the development of grammar knowledge and ability. Similarly, when students work together, they interact in the target language, and such interaction promotes language acquisition (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson, 2011).
In the same vein, as the interviewees time and again indicated, GCRTs helped them to deeply process and internalize the target grammar features (coded as internalizable). Hannah said, "as the tasks were cognitively and linguistically demanding, we were made to think deeply and work together interactively to cope with the challenges, and this, indeed assisted us to internalize narrative tenses very well". This is consistent with the socio-interactional theorists' idea that interaction mediates L2 learning and arises scaffolding among learners, thereby increasing the internalization of what have been learned.
The participants felt that the instruction technique built up their confidence to learn grammar on their own and in collaboration with classmates independent of their teacher (coded under confidence). For instance, Ermias said, "the instruction helped me to develop positive self-image the fact that I have now confidence in my ability to learn grammar by myself and with my classmates". However, at times, students were unable to work out the grammar forms by themselves and requested grammar explanation from the teacher. One respondent said, "it was good that I was trained how to learn grammar by my own effort without teacher help; however, guidance from the teacher is also important". By the same token, brief grammar explanation is essential when there is inadequate understanding and misunderstanding (Ellis, 2002), and providing learners with a short guidance is paramount (Mackey, 2006).
The respondents preferred GCRTs to grammar practicing exercises, and they expressed that GCRTs made use of more authentic materials such as lyrics, stories, and dialogues, thus they were able to learn the target grammar features in context (coded under contextual). Anna explained, "since the target features were presented mostly in context, I was familiarized not just with the structures but also with the meanings and functions associated with them". This is supported by Nunan (1998) stressing that communication and context are inseparable and teaching grammar in isolation from its real use is barely effective. Similarly, language instruction needs to aim at equipping learners with communication ability and presenting grammar items in parallel to their application in real situation is vital (Amogne, 2014).

Discussion
Lack of good grammatical competence continues to hinder students in Ethiopia from developing good communication skills, and it is argued that the problem is mainly attributed to the way grammar is commonly taught in the context. In relation to this, the intent of this study was to test the effectiveness of grammar consciousness-raising tasks in enhancing students' narrative tenses competence. The findings revealed that grammar consciousness-raising tasks were effective in helping the students develop narrative tenses competence. Compared to the conventional method, grammar consciousness-raising tasks produced more favorable results. The results of the study could substantiate scholars like Ellis (2002Ellis ( , 2015, Fotos (1993Fotos ( , 1994, Smith (1991), and Willis and Willis (1996) who argued that consciousness-raising enables students to develop grammar competence by facilitating for them to notice and associate grammar rules with their meanings and functions.
For DeKeyser (2007), Rutherford (1987), Smith (1981), and Ur (1988), engaging in grammar practicing exercises is considered a prerequisite for mastering the use of grammar patterns. However, the present study verified that productive use of grammar features is not necessarily the result of practice, but rather it is a by-product of noticing and noticing the gap. Consciousnessraising tasks which only required learners to notice and sufficiently understand the form, meaning, and use of grammar contributed to the development of students' explicit and procedural knowledge. In other words, the study proved the effectiveness of explicit grammar instruction based on the weak interface model of second language acquisition.
The study agrees with Akbari (2014), Koda (2007), and Shiotsu and Weir (2007), and Zhang (2012). These researchers showed that syntactic knowledge enhances reading comprehension ability, and difficulties in reading comprehension can result from deficiency in grammar knowledge; the findings of the present study are in congruence with their conclusion that reading comprehension ability and grammar mastery are positively correlated, and the nature of grammar teaching largely influences the degree of the correlation.
The study is also in agreement with Azar (2007), Larsen-Freeman (2014), Smith (1991), and Thornbury (1999) in the idea that learners do not develop full ability to use grammar features in a short time. As Larsen-Freeman (2014) noted, learners do not become completely capable of producing correct and fullfledged grammatical forms in a little while, and they even make some sorts of errors after mastering the forms. Similarly, it usually takes a long time for learners to produce accurate and complex grammatical structures, and they go through the stage of making a "baby-like talk" to get their message across (Thornbury, 1999). However, failing to produce correct grammar forms does not necessarily imply lack of development, for there is a time of "unperformed knowledge" (Smith, 1991). Moreover, in line with Svalberg (2005), the results of the study showed that the students generally have positive perceptions about grammar consciousness-raising tasks.

Conclusion
Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that teaching grammar through the tasks that encourage learners to collaboratively find out how and why a grammar feature in a certain communicative input or situation works or does not work is more effective than teaching grammar through teacher-fronted grammar explanations and practicing exercises. It can also be deduced from the findings of the study that students enjoy learning grammar by doing tasks that involve negotiations and discussions. Such tasks encourage cooperative learning and provide more learning opportunities and enable the students to gain confidence in their ability to learn by themselves and with their classmates. Moreover, it can be inferred from the results of the study that students do not develop complete ability to use grammar features for communication in a short while. Therefore, teachers should teach grammar through consciousness-raising tasks which induce discussions and negotiations rather than through decontextualized grammar explanations and practicing exercises. They should make learners engage in grammar tasks that encourage noticing grammar forms in a communicative input or situation and develop their own explicit knowledge of the forms mainly through their own intellectual efforts. This should be done without necessarily expecting learners to use the grammar forms effectively and efficiently in a short while.
The study involved a sample of students in a specific secondary school, and these students may not adequately represent all other secondary school students in broader contexts. Accordingly, to make the study more generalizable, further research should be conducted on the area in wider contexts involving larger participants. Moreover, it is not clear whether the effects that GCRTs caused are long-lasting; therefore, it is important to include delayed posttests to determine the long-term effects. Future research on the area may also concentrate on investigating the effectiveness of consciousness-raising tasks on learners' ability to use grammar features in their spoken or oral communication.