I’m not discussing the ‘teaching’ of grammar. I’d like to make that very clear. This is about me, studying grammar on my own, not in a classroom. I don’t think that those studies can really be invoked with nearly as much power in that light. I was ‘taught’ languages at school for years and never got anything out of it. But, studying grammar on my own - I do. Therefore, if a study claims ‘grammar has no effect on the learning of language’ then I can dismiss that study because I know it does have an effect on my own learning process.
Also, I’ve not proposed learning grammar by itself, because, to me, it’s a part of an overall program, which includes listening, reading, grammar and various other activities (speaking and reading when I feel ready for those). Why would grammar be an ‘end goal’? It’s a lever by which we lift the difficulties out of a language (as was once famously said). Certainly not the whole aim of our studies. Arguing that would be to ascribe a position to me (and others who use grammar) which they don’t hold - which I’m certain is less than proper academic behaviour.
I am able to use grammar to get insight into the structure of a language - quickly. Having a good idea of what your carving is going to look like, is a good idea. With a carving, you can imagine that or even make a copy from something you see. With a language, that’s not really possible unless you know a language which is closely related (or have an extensive knowledge of grammatical possibilities). In that case, listening and reading are probably sufficient but a read over of a grammar wouldn’t be a problem as you’d quickly see some of the major differences between what you already know and what you’re learning. That being said, I fully agree on its role of ‘sanding’ the nearly-finished work. That’s most certainly an important role for grammar.
I’m not a child and I’m not learning my first language. One big reason that children don’t learn grammar is simply because they can’t. Another is, that it’s unnecessary. Firstly, grammar has to be taught through language. If we were assuming they know nothing, then what can we use to teach them through? No. Grammar is solely used for the purposes of enlightening the mind to structures of another language or refining the knowledge of one’s own, through the use of terminology and comparison. This topic has nothing to do with first-language acquisition. This is a website for people learning something beyond than their first language.
As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think any argument towards one single approach is worthwhile. Grammar + listening + reading seems to be the magic combination. Add to that writing, speaking practice, etc, and it only becomes stronger.
Your comment about people not speaking according to grammar rules is interesting Chalkbrd. I agree, to a degree. But, if they do not speak according to that grammar (I’m talking about structure, not rules and terminology) then they wouldn’t be speaking that language at all or at best, some-far flung dialect which would likely not be understood by other speakers. Surely you have an understanding of language variation. A learner - can’t learn multiple variations of a language at once (I’ve tried it! haha). To me, grammar can help us to learn those most common, most widely accepted structures. If this is a standard language, say Standard German, Mandarin, French or Dutch, which have a wide use in media of all forms, then we will be listening, reading and watching language which accords to those structures for the most part. If we would then complain that ‘Oh, now I can’t understand X dialect’ then perhaps you should have learned it to begin with. (Good luck finding resources, by the way).
These are just some of my thoughts. Feel free to ask questions. Certainly this is a very interesting topic!
