Both in the teaching and the learning of grammatical structures, intuition plays a key role. Teachers use their intuitions about the target language to provide goals for students and to evaluate student performance. Learners have their own intuitions about what does or does not belong to the target language, and changes in such intuitions reflect, however obliquely, their developing competence in the target language. This article considers the hierarchical nature of intuitions in language teaching. In idealized form, the hierarchy of intuitions establishes clearcut degrees of authority in judgments: Learners normally defer to the intuitions of teachers, and when teachers are in doubt they defer to the intuitions of grammarians (who may or may not be professional linguists). In reality, the workings of the hierarchy are far more complex. The focus of the article is on one of the problematic aspects of the hierarchy: the fact that there are limitations on the ability of teachers and linguists to provide reliable judgments. This fact has important consequences for everyday practice in language teaching.

On the nature of intuitions

Scholars have long found it difficult to define the term intuition in a fully adequate way. Such a definition would imply a satisfactory answer to some of the most intractable philosophical and psychological problems. The nature of knowledge, consciousness, and judgment will certainly be important considerations in any satisfactory account of intuition, but these and other considerations remain controversial (cf. Rorty 1967).