ABSTRACT
The place of grammar instruction in the second/foreign language curriculum has been strongly debated in the past 30 years. In teaching methods reliant on a structural syllabus (e.g., grammar translation, audiolingualism, Total Physical Response, situational language teaching), grammar held pride of place. However, with the advent of communicative language teaching (see, e.g., Allwright, 1979) and “natural” methods (e.g., Krashen & Terrell, 1983), this place has been challenged and in some cases, a “zero position” has been advocated (e.g., Krashen, 1982) on the grounds that teaching grammar does not correlate with acquiring grammar. More recently, various arguments have been advanced for incorporating a “focus on form”1 into the language curriculum (e.g., Doughty & Williams, 1998), motivated by research findings that suggest that “natural” language learning does not lead to high levels of grammatical and sociolinguistic competence (e.g., Swain, 1985). The purpose of this chapter is to consider a number of reasons why grammar should be included in a second language (L2) curriculum. The chapter also addresses how a grammar component might be incorporated into a communicative curriculum. Finally, it outlines an approach to the teaching of grammar that is compatible with the curricular framework being proposed.
