International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES) Vol.

13, 2012

The Importance of Grammar in ELT

Leila Lakhoua*
Arab Open University, Oman

Abstract: With the advent of the Communicative Approach in ELT, grammar has been
marginalized as the focus has shifted from accuracy to communicative competence. Yet
an obvious decline in written proficiency has been noticed due basically to poor
grammar. If a high written proficiency is required at the academic level, could this be
achieved without grammar instruction in the foreign language? This paper will
investigate on this issue by addressing the following questions: (i) To Teach or Not to
Teach Grammar: a Controversy? (ii) How to Teach Grammar: Is there a miraculously
effective method? What are the implications on the Grammar-Writing interdependence?

Introduction
Grammar teaching has recently witnessed a revival despite a relative eclipse
between 1950-1980 due to some ELT trends rather reluctant to include an
explicit grammar syllabus in the English curriculum. Indeed, a glance at any
existing ESL/EFL textbook shows that grammar still has its place in the
curriculum. The ebb and flow of the attitudes for or against grammar teaching
have been influenced by the changes in language teaching methods and
approaches. For grammar proponents, it may be unconceivable to teach a
foreign language without teaching its grammar- just like teaching music without
teaching music theory. But for grammar opponents, it can be argued that one can
learn a foreign language without learning its grammar. The latter view a foreign
language as a skill to be acquired through use not through grammar rules.
Consider, for example, immigrants who become very fluent in a foreign country
just by exposure to native speakers, or natives who pick up a foreign language
only through close contact with tourists in some developing countries where
tourism is a key economic sector. In the same way, if you are naturally gifted for
music, you may become a virtuoso without knowing one single music note.
However, the issue in the present study is not addressed to amateurs but to
professionals. The teaching of grammar is not intended to be a simple tool for
everyday communication, but an important component of language competence
to be acquired by academic students who need to achieve a high level of
proficiency and accuracy. More precisely, the target students in this paper are
Arab undergraduates learning English, most of whom are estimated to become
English professionals. This paper will, therefore, discuss to what extent
grammar can help to achieve that goal.
In the first part we shall address the controversial question: To Teach or
Not to Teach Grammar? If we decide to teach it, then the question is : How to

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teach grammar effectively? In this second part we shall propose some didactic
ways to teach grammar by relating it to academic writing

1. To Teach or not to teach grammar?

Rationale
After more than two decades of teaching grammar, trying all trends and
choosing a variety of teaching materials, we have a feeling of non-achievement
when we see the number of errors students make when they speak English, and
more particularly when they write in English, where errors become more visible.
Actually, grammar teachers are implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, the object
of blame by teachers of other language skills. We often hear remarks such as:''
What on earth are you doing in grammar if students are not even able to ask a
question correctly?'' The answer to such a remark is not at all evident and would
call the teaching process including teachers, methods, and course books into
question.
First, making errors is a normal phenomenon in any learning process: we
learn by trial and error. According to Error Analysis Theory, errors indicate the
student’s strategy of language learning and acquisition. They are considered as
evidence of the learner’s strategy to build competence in the target language.
Second, not only grammar is to be blamed. Other language skills may not
be less blamable. For example, however effectively you teach pronunciation,
students will make errors in speech particularly in stress; however successful a
course in study skills may be, students are not able to use a dictionary properly
or to include sources and references. While such errors are perfectly normal in
foreign language acquisition, the following pertinent assumptions may,
nevertheless, cross the mind of any ELT specialist:
1. The more we teach grammar the worse learners write.
2. Grammar is useless if it is just for the sake of it.
3. Grammar is only a memorization of a set of rules.
4. Can we do without teaching grammar?
As a matter of fact, a higher institution where I worked during the 1980s,
attempted for one year this grammarless approach following the comprehension
trend marking that period based on the Natural Approach (see Literature Review
further). It was argued that students had had seven years of English before
starting college, and were supposed to know all the basic rules of English
grammar. All they needed was a remedial grammar, that is for the teacher to go
over and recall a grammar point whenever a mistake occurred. The anti-
grammar decision was almost unanimously acclaimed and the grammar course,
formerly taught for two hours a week for four semesters, was simply withdrawn
from the curriculum. Few teachers, and the author was one of them, were rather
skeptical. We feared that if with two hours of grammar for four semesters,
students still made errors, what if we did not teach them grammar at all? Our
skepticism was well founded: the students' performance got worse, and all the
teachers who voted for the decision were demanding more grammar to be

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introduced. Since then, grammar has been re-included in the English curriculum
and would most probably remain there for a long time.

Proponents and opponents

Before a vote for or against grammar can be taken, I invite the reader to ponder
on the opposed views below.

FOR AGAINST
It’s not conceivable to teach any Teaching grammar is a waste of time
language without teaching its
grammar
Without grammar I cannot really I can communicate with only a few words, no
communicate need to learn grammar
I cannot progress without You can teach grammar and nothing but
grammar grammar, but students will still make basic
mistakes e.g, verb agreement and asking
questions
I know how to speak but I cannot Don’t teach me how a bike works, teach me
write one single correct sentence how to ride
I expect you to teach me grammar; I can acquire L2 in the same way I acquired my
I want to know how this foreign mother tongue; just immerse me in an L2
language is different from my own cultural environment
language

Let us see now some adverse opinions from renown scholars and linguists.
Arguments for grammar
1. Sentence-machine argument
Chomsky’s theory of creativity and productivity demonstrates that grammar is a
set of finite rules that can generate an infinite number of sentences, so a
knowledge of these rules is essential to achieve language competence.

2. Fine-tuning argument
Grammar is the vehicle of meaning and coherence. Consider the following
sentences produced by some ESL learners:
*Last Monday I will be boring in my house
*Five years ago I would want to go to India
How can the learner be shown the incoherence in the above sentences without
some knowledge of grammar?

3. Fossilization argument
The principle of L2 learning based on ''Pick it up as you go along’’ can possibly
work. But to what extent? It can be argued that learners will reach a plateau
beyond which they cannot progress. Their competence will therefore freeze and
get fossilized and only grammar can help get beyond that level.

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4. Discrete items argument

Any L2 seen from outside is considered as a huge new entity. How can it be
taught or learnt as a mass? Grammar has the advantage of dividing language
into discrete items such as tenses, pronouns, articles, modals etc., which can be
taught in a very clear, straightforward, structured way. Such a discrete items
division, conventional as it might look, can be very helpful especially at the
early stages of ELL

5.Learner’s expectation argument

Some L2 learners may feel disappointed when using self-study materials, or
learning through immersion. So they often enroll in L2 courses and expect to
learn grammar to see how the foreign language functions. If grammar is not
there they may feel frustrated.

Arguments against grammar

1. Language as a skill argument
Some grammar opponents think that language is a skill not a set of rules. So they
advocate the principle of ''Learn it by doing it not by studying it''. They compare
L2 learning to riding a bike, or learning computer skills. They relate their
argument to the learners ' failure to translate what they learn to skills. A sound
proof for this is the discrepancy between grammar and the writing output. The
majority of students can reach a good performance in a grammar test, but fail to
perform well in writing making those very mistakes they were tested on in the
grammar test. The grammar opponents also base their argument on the difficulty
for a student with a loaded knowledge of grammar to interact easily in everyday
situations, such as calling a taxi, interacting in the post office or asking for
directions.

2. Communicative language teaching argument

As a counter reaction to the audio-lingual method, CLT founds its theory on the
principle that language is a communicative competence. Grammar , then, is only
viewed as a tool to achieve that goal. Grammar is an instrument to appropriate
interaction in a social context. Two schools have emerged form the CLT
approach: the shallow-end and the deep-end tendencies. The shallow-end
tendency sees grammar as instrumental: it is the learn to use method which
encourages teaching grammar in lifelike situations and authentic context. Most
of current popular grammar books have chosen this trend. In most ELT
curricular, titles such as "grammar in use'' or '' grammar in context" are quite
common .The deep-end trend, however, views grammar as a use to learn tool.
Proponents of this approach believe in the experiential method: learn grammar
unconsciously by using it. In this case, teaching grammar would be irrelevant
and useless.

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3. Acquisition argument
Stephen Krashen’s Acquisition Theory (1981) is based on the principle which
distinguishes learning from acquisition. Learning means a conscious formal
instructional process; while acquisition is an unconscious experiential expository
process through which L1 is acquired. He argues that L2 can be acquired in the
same way as L1by immersing the learner in an L2 stress-free environment and
let innate learning capacities be triggered. He goes further to assert that success
in L2 is due to acquisition not to learning. This approach, consequently, rejects
the formal study of grammar.

4 . Natural order argument

This argument is based on Chomsky’s Universal Grammar Theory, which
argues that we are all born with the faculty to learn languages and that there are
similar grammatical patterns shared by all grammars like the positive negative
statements. As an illustration, any learner of English as SL or FL, whether
he/she is Chinese, Nigerian, Omani, Indian, will naturally say :*I not speak
English at the early learning stages and would learn to say I don’t speak English
much later. In fact the dummy do is a difficult concept to learn so to hammer it
down with strict rules and constant error correction, at the early stages of
learning, is often doomed to fail .The natural order method suggests, then, to let
learners acquire language naturally: they will make mistakes and start with
simple language patterns at the beginning and later acquire more complex ones.
In the same way as L1 acquisition which develops naturally from baby talk
fragments to more complex adult like discourse.

5. Lexical chunk argument

Another recent trend in ELT is Lewis’ Lexical Approach (1993). This theory
explains that learning language is learning chunks of language which are more
than words and less than sentences. For example, phrases, idioms, collocations,
stereotyped expressions, etc. So instead of teaching grammatical rules, it is
better to teach formulaic expressions like:
Excuse me.
So far so good.
Here you are.
Have you ever been?
This method can prove to be very useful for effective communication.

6. Learner’s expectation argument

Learners of English as L2 have an ambivalent attitude vis-à-vis grammar. They
may demand it as we saw in argument(5) for grammar above, or they may
think it is useless. In both cases they show a sense of frustration; and adult or
ESP learners tend to see formal grammar as a waste of time: “Don’t teach me
grammar teach me how to communicate” is often heard as an argument against
learning grammar.

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The current debate: A grammar revival

Despite all the opponent tendencies against grammar, we have lately witnessed a
revival of grammar. "If grammar ever went away, it’s only for a short time and
not very far" as Thornbury (1999) asserted. Indeed, in most ELT curricular, even
at tertiary level, there is often room for a grammar course and if it is not there
the curriculum may be the object of criticism
Let us then see the reasons which have contributed to this revival

1. Fluency vs. accuracy

For decades since 1970 the influential CLT approach has eclipsed grammar in
favour of communicative competence. The result is a focus on fluency more than
on accuracy. Consequently, learners are able to talk but cannot write properly,
which can be a serious impediment to university students for whom formal
academic writing is a significant outcome.

2. Unconscious vs instructional learning

The Natural Approach, the Deep-End Approach, and Krashen’s Acquisition
Theory have all short-lived. However pertinent they sounded, they proved to be
more idealistic than pragmatic and realistic. Indeed the L1= L2 theory is the
object of a very fierce and hot debate. Opponents to this theory argue that if
some learners may reach near native competence by simple immersion in L2
culture, these are exceptions rather than the rule. Furthermore, there is sound
evidence that without raising attention to L2 grammar rules, the learner cannot
go beyond the level of basic communication. Therefore, grammar is now
revisited: with a focus on form and conscious raising. The current tendency
advocates the theory that learning is enhanced when the learners’ attention is
directed to the features of the grammatical system.
Hussein and Fotos (2004) mentioned that extensive research conducted on
learning outcomes in French immersion programs showed that ‘’despite
substantial long-term exposure to meaningful input, the learners did not achieve
accuracy in certain grammatical forms. Thus , communicative language teaching
by itself was found to be inadequate’’
In the same vein Ellis (2002b) showed that current research is strongly in
favour of a provision for instructional grammar forms and recommends a
combination of form focused instruction and meaningful communication. The
notion of awareness has been illustrated by Ellis (2001) as allowing the learners
to consciously "notice" formal properties of the language in the input to be able
to form an explicit representation of the target form and thereby to develop
explicit knowledge.

In summary, it seems evident that the balance is pointing more towards teaching
grammar. Nevertheless, even if this paper is in favour of conscious grammar
teaching, grammar should not be the single goal of teaching: it is not an end in
itself. We still want the learners to be communicative, so a focus on form alone
is far from being sufficient. Grammar should be a tool or a resource to

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meaningful discourse. Grammar is necessary because it may improve writing or

at least explain the mechanisms of language structural rules and train the
learners to make use of these rules in language production. Now, how students
use what they have learnt in practice is the heart of the matter. The question is,
therefore, no longer ''to teach or not to teach grammar?'' but how to teach
grammar effectively, and more precisely how to bridge the gap between the
learners' receptive and productive skills.

2. How to teach grammar effectively

In the present study, we shall attempt to advise how grammar can be taught
more effectively. It would be too pretentious and unrealistic to think that one
approach can be ideal and that students will miraculously stop from making
grammar mistakes. In fact foreign language teachers have ultimately
realized that a radical method to remedy language teachinh and learning
problems is simply utopic.. The aim is only to try and reduce the recurrence of
errors chiefly in relation to academic writing. Indeed, what is strikingly
noticeable is that students can achieve quite well in grammar tests, but perform
poorly in writing. We will attempt therefore, to point out to a tentative solution
which can relate grammar to writing and can enhance the learners' awareness
about their grammatical errors.

Historical overview
Before we discuss a tentative method, we thought it useful to review some
methodological trends since the second half of the last century discussing the
merits and demerits of each approach.

The audio-lingual method

With the advent of linguistics, the audio-lingual approach dominated ELT
teaching for over two decades overthrowing the traditional grammar-translation
method thought to be impractical as it focused solely on written accuracy. Up to
the mid 1970 and for several years after, the audio-lingual approach had marked
the structuralist / behaviourist school. Language was thought to be a system of
stimulus-response based on mimicry and memorization. Language learning was
habit formation and overlearning. Grammar was presented as a set of language
patterns to be extensively and inductively practiced through a variety of drills.
To minimize learners' errors, teachers were told to correct systematically all
students' mistakes. Grammar structures were carefully sequenced from basic to
more complex using formal traditional terminology such as nouns, pronouns,
articles, adjectives. Errors were the results of interference from the first
language and were considered as bad habits which had to be systematically
corrected to be prevented. The method of instruction was linear and hardly went
beyond sentence level. However useful this method could be for learning
language mechanisms, it was reproached for isolating grammar from context
and for lacking authenticity. It rarely stimulated students' creativity and
ultimately widened the gap between grammar and writing. Learners were quite
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able to perform at the sentence level but as soon as they moved to paragraph
writing, the mistakes which they had been trained to avoid reappeared.

The cognitive approach

The 1970s were marked by the cognitive approach which came as a reaction to
the behaviourist audio-lingual school. Largely influenced by Chomsky (1959),
this approach viewed language as hypothesis formation and rule acquisition
rather than habit formation. Grammar was considered important and rules were
presented inductively or deductively. Errors were considered as a by-product of
language learning and had to be constructively used by the teacher and the
learner in the learning process. They were considered as appropriate classroom
activities where peer and self correction was greatly encouraged. The source of
errors was not only a transfer from the mother tongue but also a normal
development in the language learning process , similar to L1 errors, and are due
to the complexity of the foreign language. Nevertheless, grammar was still
taught on the sentence level, not based on context and thereby not relating
grammar to writing.

The comprehension approach

The comprehension approach, influenced by the Natural Approach, marked the
period between the 1970s and the 1980s. Introduced by Krashen & Terrel
(1983), this method defended the view that the experience of L1 acquisition is
similar to that of L2. The notion of comprehension is, therefore, primary and
should precede any production. The pedagogical implication of this method is to
delay production in the target language by encouraging the learner to use
meaningful non verbal responses to demonstrate comprehension. Some
advocates of this approach carefully sequence grammar in the instruction
programs and thus present it inductively. Others propose that all grammar
instruction be excluded from the curriculum as they believe that it does not
facilitate language acquisition; instead they propose that the learners should only
become familiar with the forms they use. Consequently, error correction
becomes unnecessary, may be thought of as unproductive, since errors will
gradually be self corrected by the learners when they are exposed to a more
complex , rich and meaningful input in the target language.
The above approach did not seem to receive any enthusiastic feedback from
English practitioners because it lacked structural methodological basis even if it
contained a sound theory on language acquisition.

The communicative approach

A more revolutionary trend: the Communicative Approach to Language
Teaching or CLT has marked ELT since the 1970s. It originated from the work
of Hymes (1972) and Halliday (1973), who viewed language as primarily a tool
of communication This philosophy, still very popular, was applied to language
teaching by Widdowson (1978) and Wilkins (1976), who claim that
communication is the goal of ESL and EFL learning. The grammar course,

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should, therefore, be organized not according to the traditional segmented

formal method but according to subject matter, tasks, semantic and pragmatic
functions. This school brought about a new approach to language instruction and
more particularly to grammar which moved from being sentence based to
context and discourse based, replacing traditional formal notions by meaningful,
functional, contextualized concepts. The teacher's role is thus to facilitate
language use and communication leaving error correction in a secondary
position. An influential grammar book epitomized this school: A Communicative
Grammar of English by Leech and Svartvik (1975), which is so trendy that it
deserves a whole section to be described and assessed.

Description of CGE
The originality of this comprehensive reference book strikes the reader from the
first glance. Standing out from previous grammar materials it is presented with
two major innovations. First, it introduces grammar in use where grammatical
structures are systematically related to meanings, uses and situations. Second,
and may be for the first time, there is a focus on speech and a comprehensive
treatment of different language registers, i.e the difference between written and
spoken forms, formal and informal style, BrE and AmE varieties of English. The
approach to learning grammar is also different form the conventional method of
memorizing and applying a set of rules. In their introduction to the book the
authors explain clearly their objective: "Given that students want to
communicate certain meanings in certain situations or contexts, which
grammatical forms and structures can I use?'..
The CGE method is clear and consistent: different grammatical categories
are not presented in the formal traditional way - nouns, adjectives, adverbs,
verbs, modals, etc- but are grouped together under the same semantic concept.
For example, under Section A: concepts, all noun categories are treated: objects,
substance, materials, count, uncount, abstraction, mass with all the related
components to the noun notion: amount or quantity, definite and indefinite
meaning, restrictive and non-restrictive meaning, genitives etc. In the same way,
the part on verb phrase is treated under the concept time including tense, aspect,
auxiliaries, verb phrases, prepositions and prepositional phrases, adverbs and
connectives all related to the same notion of time. So CGE's approach focuses
on meaning first, to which the appropriate grammatical form is matched

Evaluation of CGE
However original and innovative the book looks, it seems confusing to me, as
too many notions are treated at the same time and in the same place. The reader,
particularly the student, may not easily find a logical link between the different
paragraphs. Besides, there is inevitably much overlap and repetition as the same
grammatical structure will be found under different grammar concepts. Indeed,
the authors always refer the reader backward or forward to a description of the
same structure in another section of the book For example, relative clauses,
adjectives, prepositions can be found in the four sections. Modals are included

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both in section B and section C. Quantifiers in Section A and Section D, etc. It

can be argued that this is what is meant by the communicative approach: the
same grammatical category changes meaning according to different situations.
While I agree with the approach I still find the book rather puzzling to unveil. It
may be very useful as a reference book mainly for teachers or teacher trainers,
but it appears rather mazy for students. We have the impression that if a student
used to the traditional approach to grammar learning is plunged in this book it is
like throwing him/her in deep water without a leading thread to emerge. The
learner will discover a wonderful kaleidoscopic world indeed, but how much
will be retained when out of water?
In short, CGE has remained so popular because for the first time it
presents grammar as an effective tool of communication including style, speech,
context and meaning through a novel approach. But it remains chiefly a
comprehensive reference book, therefore more valuable for teachers than for
learners.

Talking about grammar: Highly recommended

CGE has gained a more pragmatic dimension with a very original and
challenging workbook: Talking about Grammar, Bower, et.al (1987). Firmly
based on Part Three of CGE: Grammar in use, TAG is designed in the form of
questions (with a key) to help the teacher and the students explore CGE more
deeply and '' to develop a greater awareness of how the communicative potential
of English can be exploited'', the authors explain in their introduction to the
book. The main objective is to make a reference book meet the needs of the
classroom for more pedagogical efficiency. The book is made up essentially of
questions referring to the different paragraphs in CGE. The questions are
deliberately brief and subtle, i.e the answer is never automatic, it requires a
moment’s thought and sometimes leads to different answers. One example is a
case in point: one question referring to phrasal verbs reads: I thought of you and
smiled; I thought about you and smiled, which is the more flattering? This is
intentionally stimulating for the student to read the appropriate paragraph of
GCE and find the correct answer. Totally different from conventional grammar
exercises, this method requires a variety of skills from the learner. First, the
student has to read the paragraph to skim and scan for the information. When the
relevant answer is found, the student should discuss it with a peer before
suggesting it to the teacher. This is a very productive and stimulating activity
which involves a great deal of interactive skills. If there is a general consensus
on the right reply, it will be accepted, if not, which is quite often the case, it
yields a very lively class discussion. For the final check, we can go to the
answer key, where some of the answers are deliberately left blank. This
approach clearly highlights the fact that grammar is not a set of rules to be
memorized, it is much more complex than that and could become a very lively
and creative activity. Apart from reading and speaking skills, TAG relates
grammar to writing by asking the students to complete sentences or to give a
true example of a given notion. Consider the following examples on tenses

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1. I posted the letter, but up to now…''

How will you finish the sentence?
Q.21, p. 6
2. Give a true example of
a present state
a present habit
Q31-32, p. 7
TAG brings another innovation: it relates grammar to translation to touch upon
the spiny issue of L1 transfer. Very often translation questions come last after
the students have well grasped the concept under discussion Consider this very
demanding question referring to prepositions:
What expressions would you use in another language to
label the five basic spatial concepts .
Q. 40, p. 21
The examples chosen are specimens of the whole book's approach and
demonstrate the originality of TAG

TAG's usefulness
TAG is highly recommended for advanced learners, graduate or post-graduate
students, teachers and teacher educators. As its title indicates, TAG is not a
grammar exercise book, it does not teach/ practice grammar rules, but it ''talks
about grammar'', that is it enhances the learner's awareness of the functional
meaning of different grammatical patterns. Nevertheless, a pre-requisite to TAG
would be a grammar course to upper-intermediate students where the approach
will be conceptual and the method communicative but with perhaps more drills
and practice exercises. TAG is excellent not only because of its innovative
approach but also because it includes all language levels: written, spoken,
formal, informal. It involves a variety of skills: reading, speaking, writing and
translation- it even includes a few refreshing mental calculation tests. In short, it
is a highly instrumental grammar book, stimulating, lively and thought-
provoking,

Which method to choose?

None of the approaches described previously proved to be totally conclusive. Do
students trained in one method or the other perform better? Unfortunately,
existing research has proved that ESL/ EFL students especially in writing are
still producing broken, ungrammatical, even pidginized forms of the target
language. Nevertheless, for pedagogical efficacy, it seems that a focus-on-form
method is more appropriate for intermediate to upper- intermediate university
students, whereas a focus- on- meaning and function is better suited for more
advanced learners. In any case, the recent trends show a preference of the
communicative context/content- based approach over the traditional linear
sentence based method. An inductive, student-centered didactics is also
favoured to a deductive teacher-based one.

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A proposed solution
It can be argued, in the end, that no book or method is claimed to be better or
more efficient than another. Therefore, there is currently a predominant
tendency to focus more on the outcome than on the input. The best approach, in
my view, is left to the teacher’s discretion, in collaboration with the course
designer and language planners to choose the most appropriate method and
material bearing the following selection criteria in mind:
• students’ level and abilities
• students’ needs and interests
• students’ learning outcomes
• students’ cultural background

The case being so, it seems very difficult to find a grammar book that
would meet all the above conditions. This is where the teacher’s role becomes
fundamental: compile a special course to meet specific needs by selecting
material from different sources and working on work- sheets rather than on
ready-made textbooks. The task may sound too demanding to be carried out
solely by the teacher, especially in the case of novice teachers whose role is
limited to implement what has been chosen by the course planners, at a
governmental level, and the course designers, at a pedagogical level. In my case,
during my long teaching experience, I have very often acted as two-in-one: a
teacher and a course designer. Actually, tenured teachers at university level are
commonly granted a great deal of latitude to plan and design their own courses
to meet the specific needs of their learners. The leading thread should be: to
select material from different sources, adopt what looks appropriate from
diversified methods and approaches, then model a personalized grammar course.
In addition, one needs to be innovative, open to change, and always trigger the
learner's productive and creative skills.
Bastone (1994) notes that, for effective grammar learning students have to
"act on it, building it into their working hypothesis about how grammar is
structured". This can only be achieved by exposing the learners to extensive
noticing activities as well as ample opportunities for producing the target form
in the appropriate context.

The grammar –writing connection

The goal of the present paper has become clear by now: for an effective use of
grammar teaching there should always be a connection with writing. Whenever
a grammatical aspect is taught it should be put in practice in a written task. For
instance, if the lesson is on tenses and more precisely on the past tense, the
students should be asked to write a short paragraph on a memorable event/story
or dream. To practice the present tense they can write a description of their
home town or country. For the present perfect, a conversation can be engaged on
the best film/book the students have lately seen/read. It should be noted here that
the present perfect is better practiced at the spoken level as it is a tense more
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used in conversation than in written discourse. The learners’ awareness to this

fact should be drawn so that the present perfect is used with more caution in
writing. For better didactic purposes the grammar and writing courses should not
be dissociated. The conventional method, which teaches grammar and writing
separately, can explain the existing flaw. Ideally, it would be more effective to
design a grammar course adopted to writing and spoken skills rather than the
other way round. To design a writing course as a thematic typified process
moving from descriptive, narrative paragraph to argumentative essay will
possibly teach writing mechanisms but will not solve the poor grammar
performance, for which the students can be heavily penalized in academic
writing.
Hinkel (2002b) notes that grammar teaching is usually treated separately
from the teaching of writing. She, therefore, recommends that instruction in L2
writing include explicit instruction on grammar lexical forms and rhetorical
patterns as exemplified by authentic text and discourse.

Conclusion
Despite the controversial attitudes towards grammar in ELT, if our target
learners are advanced university students and if the focus is on high proficiency
level and written accuracy, it seems imperative to enhance students’ awareness
to the grammatical forms of English. It is also very important to put in practice
what they have learnt in theory. The method proposed is to teach grammar in
close relation to writing. To start with a focus on form at the starting level and
move to a functional, conceptual approach at a more advanced level. In other
words, and to avoid overlapping, repetitive and monotonous grammar lessons it
is recommended to teach formal instructional grammar at the beginning, then
move to talk about grammar as it is suggested in the TAG book mentioned
earlier. Whatever the method, approach or textbook chosen, it has to be
communicative, interactive, and inciting learners to productivity and creativity.
The traditional, but never ineffective method, to make students read then write
will always be valid. A maximum exposure to the English written and oral texts
then writing about them in forms of summary will naturally improve the
students’ proficiency. To be effective, grammar should always be taught in
context with authentic situations and presented in an innovative enjoyable way.
Nothing can be more demotivating than a boring grammar lesson.

*Leila Lakhoua, Assistant Professor

Arab Open University
Sultanate of Oman
Email: nigrouleila@yahoo.fr

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Lakhoua The Importance of Grammar …

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