As it has been found that contextualized grammar teaching enhances students' literacy skills (e.g., Myhill et al., 2012), grammar is conceptualized as mainly a tool for writing in the current L1 grammar teaching discourse. As a result, other potentially meaningful reasons to teach grammar in context, such as the intrinsic values of grammar teaching, has received little or no attention (cf. van Rijt & Coppen, 2021). 

This paper accounts for an educational design research project (cf. McKenney & Reeves, 2019), in which a contextualized grammar teaching was developed and tested in Swedish upper-secondary school. Drawing upon a contextualized conceptualization of grammar (Myhill, 2021), the aim of the present paper is to explore teachers' reflections on reasons for teaching grammar in context. The data consists of recorded design conversations with the participating teachers throughout the design process, which is analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (following Braun & Clarke, 2019). The following research questions will be addressed: i) what conceptions concerning the purpose of grammar teaching are expressed? and ii) what didactic implications may they entail? 

Preliminary results show that the teachers do not necessarily conceptualize the purpose of grammar teaching as being a dichotomy between procedural and declarative knowledge. Rather, they are seen as a mutually constituting relationship. However, findings also indicate that teachers find it easier to draw on grammar as a tool for writing when motivating students, and therefore an instrumental perspective tends to become the starting point for some teachers. Implications for the teaching of grammar in L1 education will be discussed, linking back to previous research on contextualized grammar teaching.