---
title: "Challenges and Opportunities of English Grammar Acquisition by"
description: "This study looks at how university students experienced learning English grammar remotely after the spring 2020 pandemic… 39 references."
authors: ["Monta Farneste", "Vineta Apse"]
year: 2021
venue: "Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture 11"
source: "https://journal.lu.lv/bjellc/article/view/94"
doi: "10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01"
licence: "CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/farneste-2021-challenges-opportunities-english-grammar-acquisition/"
---
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# Challenges and Opportunities of English Grammar Acquisition by Distance at the Tertiary Level

**Authors:** Monta Farneste and Vineta Apse · **Year:** 2021 · **Venue:** [Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture 11](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/baltic-journal-of-english-language-literature-and-culture/) ([Baltic Journal of English Language Literature and Culture 2021](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/baltic-journal-of-english-language-literature-and-culture/2021/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Latvia](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-latvia/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01) · [PDF](https://journal.lu.lv/bjellc/article/download/94/79) · [DOI 10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01](https://doi.org/10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W3184642443)

**Citations:** 4 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
This study looks at how university students experienced learning English grammar remotely after the spring 2020 pandemic shift, at a tertiary institution in Latvia. The authors asked two questions. What do students see as the gains and losses of studying grammar at a distance? Does online access to course and revision materials help students build independent study skills? They ran a questionnaire with open-ended and closed questions, answered by 23 undergraduates. Course materials were hosted on Moodle.

Students valued choosing when and where to study. They said this improved their time management, autonomy and motivation. Their main complaints were too little feedback, no way to get instant answers, and their own weak self-organisation. Many students said their independent skills had grown, yet very few actually looked for extra materials. The authors read this as a need for external structure.

The paper ends with practical recommendations for distance courses. The sample is small, so the findings show tendencies rather than general results. They still matter for reducing dropout in remote higher education.

## Key points
- The survey had 23 undergraduate respondents at a Latvian university and mixed open-ended and closed questions.
- Reported benefits were flexible time and place, a better study–work–life balance, stronger time management and independent study skills, and higher motivation.
- Reported drawbacks were insufficient teacher feedback, no immediate replies to questions, and trouble with self-discipline.
- Only 2 students searched for additional theoretical materials before tests. Many more claimed better independent skills.
- Recommendations:
  - hold and record an online first class;
  - run regular online classes;
  - answer email more often than once per 24 hours;
  - record answers to frequent questions;
  - offer weekly individual or group tutorials.

## Interesting ideas
- Students' claims about their own study skills did not match what they actually did, so behaviour gave the truer picture.
- Revision meant going back to theory and redoing tasks already solved once, and students used it to prepare for tests.
- The authors linked each respondent's answers across questions. Those who wanted more feedback were the same ones missing live contact.
- Recording answers to frequent questions lets learners check explanations as often as they need, without waiting for a person.
- Some students needed a provided "box" of structure before they could work independently. Open freedom alone did not help them.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (learn): Score components on observed behaviour on held-out items rather than on their own confidence. A model's self-reported certainty should never stand in for a check against controls.
- **I2** (learn): Keep a replay set of previously solved items and re-run it after each training round. This catches regressions before new material is added.
- **I3** (learn): Cross-tabulate failure types per test item, not only as overall counts. Errors that co-occur in the same sentences may point to one shared root cause, such as a tokenization or parse defect upstream.
- **I4** (answer): Store explained answers to recurring question types from school-course tests as reusable, inspectable patterns. Readers can then reuse and audit them instead of recomputing opaque results.
- **I5** (learn): Give LLM teacher tiers a fixed, explicit output frame, such as role slots or a UD-tree format. Free-form explanations are harder to verify and convert into silver data.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

- [University of Latvia](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-latvia/) — University, Riga, Latvia · 3 works · 44 citations

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🧭 Topics (1): [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · 1,373 works

## Cite

Cite as: Monta Farneste and Vineta Apse. 2021. Challenges and Opportunities of English Grammar Acquisition by Distance at the Tertiary Level. Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture 11.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{farneste2021challenges,
  title = {{Challenges and Opportunities of English Grammar Acquisition by Distance at the Tertiary Level}},
  author = {Monta Farneste and Vineta Apse},
  journal = {Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture 11},
  year = {2021},
  doi = {10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.22364/bjellc.11.2021.01}
}
```

- [← previous Calibrate your listeners! Robust communication-based training for pragmatic speakers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/wang-2021-calibrate-your-listeners-robust-communication/)
- [next → DeepSTL — From English Requirements to Signal Temporal Logic](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/he-2021-deepstl-english-requirements-signal-temporal/)
- [↑ back to papers of 2021](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2021/page/7/)

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39 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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*Updated 24 October 2026*