I've worked with children a lot, but only after having my own kid and doing my best to find out as much as I can about child's psychology, I came across a really sensible book. While reading I've discovered one very important thing: children younger than 10 don't get the rules. They aren't able to apply any rule to practice without our help.

In fact what happens is the next: a teacher draws some gram. rule on the board (of course s/he tries it to look as simple and clear as possible) - then some explanation comes with examples - children write and repeat everything - teacher thinks that everything is clear as a daylight and - starts giving as much practice as possible - some time later kids start making progress and build sentences easily (according to the rule) - SUCCESS!))

But what's wrong? - Nothing but the fact that writing and explaining the rule was totally useless! Children made their progress thanks to practice alone. And having enough experience I can state that it's true) So why wasting time, energy, and sometimes even using L1 in order to explain some rules???