grammar

Hi everyone, just interested in opinions.

Is there any place for teaching grammar in a formal manner?

I teach grammar when necessary. It's an essential patrt of language learning, but it's not the be-all.

If words are the bricks and mortar of communication, grammar is the building plan.

To what extent it is useful to teach formal grammar varies a great deal from class to class, and from individual to individual. But most people appear to appreciate clear rules about how to make sentences, if only to avoid making stupid mistakes. Perhaps if whoever had translated the little notice on the trouser press at the hotel I was at over the weekend had been clear on how passives are formed, they would not have written, "For safety reasons, you must turn on the light by using the trouser press."