Enabling change in EFL teachers’ ideologies about grammar and grammar teaching through alternative pedagogies Margaret Robertson, Shem Macdonald, Donna Starks, Howard Nicholas * La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia article info Article history: Received 15 February 2017 Received in revised form 30 October 2017 Accepted 2 November 2017 abstract For pedagogies to change, teachers undertaking professional development need to engage in deep reflective thinking about what they bring with them, what their professional programs offer and what their teaching contexts expect. In this paper, we describe a set of activities used to encourage EFL in-service teachers to engage with multiple examples of pedagogies related to one grammatical item and to reflect on how these activities mediate and change their beliefs about grammar and grammar teaching. Informed by a view of pedagogy that combines teaching with culturally-situated purposes, theories and beliefs, we analyse changes in the ways these in-service teachers conceptualize grammar; develop a deeper understanding of pedagogical approaches to grammar and show a willingness to engage with alternative approaches; and alter their ideologies around their EFL praxis as a way to make informed decisions about their pedagogies and take more control over their teaching. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction 1 Fostering agency among teachers to take on new pedagogies involves them in connecting ideologies and practices (Alexander, 2013). This involves them in exploring and making decisions about diverse teaching practices. Our goal in this paper is to reveal the “private mental work” (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015, p. 585) of in-service language teachers as they engage with varied approaches to teaching grammar. We show how an open view of pedagogies can empower teachers to make complex decisions in the interests of their students (see Biesta, Priestley, & Robinson, 2015) around multiple, alternative understandings of ‘grammar’ and grammar teaching. As Biesta et al. (2015), p. 637) outline, decisions about any aspect of pedagogy involve interacting reflections on “beliefs from past experience … beliefs oriented towards the future … and beliefs that play a role in the here-and-now” as well as between individuals and groups (seePanti c, 2015, p. 764 as well as; Tao & Gao, 2017 , p. 353). In making such decisions, teachers cross between different ways of thinking to become active agents of change (Lipponen & Kumpulainen, 2011 , p. 817). Our research question is: Can open pedagogies contribute to change in in-service teacher ideologies of grammar and grammar teaching? We focus on grammar and grammar teaching because, as discussed in Spada and Lightbown (2008), it is an aspect of language teaching that is often treated as independent of context and seen as lacking in richness. * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: mj.robertson@latrobe.edu.au (M. Robertson), s.macdonald@latrobe.edu.au (S. Macdonald), d.starks@latrobe.edu.au (D. Starks), h. nicholas@latrobe.edu.au (H. Nicholas). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect System journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/system https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.11.002 0346-251X/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. System 72 (2018) 75e84