I deeply appreciate your suggestion on teaching grammar. However, this approach requires a lot of patience and commitment on the part of the teacher. They have to listen for each student's peculiar problems to be able to determine in advance where and how to begin.

What my students find most difficult, from simple surveys, is tenses. I hope somebody can suggest useful ways to make the teaching of tenses simpler and more interesting. I would really love something more detailed than the usually general suggestion one finds on a blog. Thanks Girish (I hope that's the short form of the name) for your exposition.

The role of Grammar in L2 teaching has generated more heat and light as well. After Krashen's acquisition and learning theory and subsequent affective filter domain, Terrel's natural approach Input theory of Krashen, it is now an accepted fact that L2 can also be picked up the same way as L1 is picked and taught. If first language can be taught initially, L2 can also be taught without grammar rules being explicit. Grammar teaches a system. Teaching about system of a language will not help ss either to communicate or to write. No writer writes grammar while they describe their experiences of life. So grammar can wait till ss get conversant with the use, not rules. Knowing how to, skills behavioural and sufficient practice are sine-qua-non in L2 teaching.

Sentence patterns, rules may be taught later on. Inductive teaching of Grammar, where ss discover rules for themselves has been useful and empirically tested.

Hello colleagues! 

I would like to take part in the discussion about "the place of grammar in language teaching", raised and Submitted by Stu C on 17 June, 2009 - 19:06. First of all, it is of great use to emphasize what the linguists of the previous century discovered about Grammar. Chomsky, in 1950s, and his disciples, later on, maintained that there is a grammar hardwired into the human brain, and "that all languages had evolved on top of that universal grammar, and that children learned their native languages using the universal grammar as a support structure."

As far as English as a second Language is concerned, the first "germs" of that Universal Grammar interferes with the Learning Process in that a Second Language Learner "corrects" his grammar either at home (during his interactions with his family and relations), outside (with his pals...) or in school (classmates, teachers,...) or elsewhere (parks, cafes, mass-media...). I have a son, 3 years old, and a daughter, 5, whose native language is Arabic, both interact in English though their mother doesn't speak English. I sometimes can't help laughing when I hear the girl correcting her brother's Second Language Grammar. I never taught her grammar but she has an elephant memory in that she concentrates on my speech then makes a role play with her brother in their own room while playing together. I mentioned this to prove the idea that we shouldn't give much importance to Grammar at the expense of the other elements of the lesson. When I started teaching I focused on teaching grammar, sometimes devoting a whole session -or even two- but I realized at the end of the school year  that I "killed" myself for nothing; no positive feedback neither in reading comprehension nor in writing. I learnt from that too much. Now, things are going so easy. In brief, teach grammar as well as vocabulary without focusing on the first to neglect the second. Some colleagues stop their learners to correct the "Be" form while they are teaching Pronunciation or to correct pronunciation when they are teaching Grammar. Let the stream flow smoothly and the Learning Process go naturally.