Ms Roberta King  made a few points about the word order in English. I have made the following points, if I may.

Dear Ms King,

Thank you for the reply. Nobody can, of course, have any qualms with the current methods of teaching. Teachers have to supply a correct model for students to follow. Students will have to master the three thousand words in vocabulary and the minimum number of structures to make themselves competent in the functional use of the language. This is the method followed all over. It is easier to teach grammar inductively.

But, I think that we are looking at two faces of the same coin. If students were to reach a certain level of understanding of a language, they would, of course, be following the correct grammatical rules. What is pointed out in the article is that a knowledge of grammar is definitely useful and when a learner is able to refer a dictionary and is able to place a word as a certain part of speech then the word order which certainly exists for many simple assertive sentences in English [including proverbs, one of the most precise forms of expression, which say a great deal, in a few words ] May help. This word order is not definitive, but, it holds good for a lot of basic assertive sentences and it May help a learner to slot a word into its correct place in a sentence- a bit like fill in the blanks. It Could make things simpler. It might help in autonomous learning. And as for writing Sir Francis Bacon said it all when he said: Writing makes an exact man- word order- Gerund [form of the noun] + verb + article + adjective + noun. [Imagine what would happen if everybody wrote as they spoke]. The four skills reinforce each other and writing properly would reinforce the rules of language and the student has more time to self-edit himself compared to speaking where he has to get it right the first time every time. This `leisure` and `reinforcement` to learn `proper` language might be a point in favor of learning writing first- after all, methods of teaching may also change( back to the old methods?). The next step is the one of logic. A sentence may be correct grammatically, but, incorrect logically. How would that be dealt with?

P.S. The phrase `Reverse Engineering` could be applied to native speakers who can use the language perfectly and would like to study the rules of its grammar, vocabulary etc. Could you give your opinion of all this? Please reply soon.