Thinking the grammar: Teaching a cognitive grammar using digital tools in a blended-learning context.

The teaching of certain aspects of Spanish grammar has always been challenging for both teachers and learners. Additionally traditional approaches to the teaching of grammar based on behaviourist views of learning promoting memorization and repetition have been disputed and the need to teach a cognitive grammar that responds to rules that can be understood according to the speaker’s communicative intention and should be reflected upon has been proposed. This article is aimed at showing two activities, which have been designed using digital tools with the purpose of helping undergraduates studying Spanish at the University of Leeds to reflect on the grammar. On the one hand, the digital tool Twine has been used for creating a game-like story in which learners need to reflect on the difference between simple past and past continuous in Spanish. A second task has been proposed in which learners need to watch some videos showing different uses of the modes indicative and subjunctive in context and then share on a discussion board their hypothesis about grammar use. Both these activities are intended to promote and facilitate the learner’s reflection and understanding of the grammar. On the other hand it is also the aim of this article to show that a blended-learning design constitutes the ideal framework to promote such a teaching and learning approach to the grammar based on reflection. Both traditional teaching through lectures and online tuition by using digital learning environments show benefits and constraints. However, a combination of both traditional and online tuition enhances the learner experience by facilitating the understanding of the grammar while also developing the learner’s strategies for autonomous learning.