Is Grammar Essential for Language Learning and Teaching ?

The importance of grammar teaching and learning has been a debated subject of applied linguistics for a long time. Some linguists supported and argued that learning a language can not be achieved without the learning of grammar rules of that language. However, other linguists suggested that grammar is just a part of language systems which is not so essential to language learning. So, is grammar the central part in language learning and teaching?

Among the first linguists who supported the importance of grammar in language learning, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand De Saussure. De Saussure argued that language is a set of rules that people should master and follow. He suggested also that, each language is unique in its rules of grammar which its speakers have to use. 

De Saussure's view of grammar has given birth to the modern approach of TEFL, the Traditional Grammar Approach, which emphasizes on the teaching of grammar as the most important language system for learning a language.

   

On the other hand, many linguists regarded that grammar is not so important in language teaching and learning. The leader of this view is the American linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky argued that, rules of grammar are flexible, and may generate an infinite number of sentences. He suggested that many language expressions and phrases which have been used and accepted by people, do not follow the grammatical rules. For instance the interrogative expression "where to?" is used by some English speakers instead of "where are you going to?",even though it contains no verb. Another example of grammatical rules destruction can be found in the English used by some Black Americans in the U.S. They usually omit the auxiliary in sentences such as "I am a doctor" and say "I a doctor" , and sometimes, they use the infinity form and say "I be a doctor". This destruction of grammar rules is used and accepted by speakers of such community. Therefore, this is an other form of language according to Chomsky. 

Chomsky's view of generative grammar was the infrastructure to the modern TEFL approaches such as, the Communicative Language Approach which emphasizes on the involvement of the learners in the real or realistic communication, rather than teaching them the rules of grammar. The Audio-Lingual Approach also focuses on the learner's everyday conversations as a way of learning a language. The Lexical Approach focuses on the learning of the fixed and semi-fixed phrases and expressions used by the native speakers of the target language as a means of learning that language.

Although internalization of grammar rules is central to language learning and teaching, it is not the sole way of learning a language. We may find a fluent speaker of a foreign language who has never learned grammar. He has just lived and interacted with the native speakers of that language.