Teaching grammar is a challenging task in language teaching, and it's even more challenging in teaching grammar to a second language learner. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay There are many methods in the current grammar teaching scenario. We find teachers using many visual aids and hands-on experiments to teach grammar. Teachers put more effort into teaching grammar than any other part of language teaching. Grammar deals with strict rules for acquiring a language perfectly. But these strict rules turned out to be unnecessary for learning a communicative language. L2 or second language learners need the language to be taught to be communicative. Their need is not to master the language but to acquire basic communication skills. English as a language has been taught to us since the time of Lord Macaulay. The English language and grammar are part of our school curriculum and have been taught since kindergarten. Grammar teaching begins at primary school level and is taught at different levels up to upper secondary school. Our students are exposed to approximately ten years of grammar instruction at their grade level. But most of them fail to acquire even a basic level of communication. Teaching grammar did not give mastery of the language or even provide basic communication skills. This got us thinking about so many questions. Where are we wrong? Is grammar teaching necessary in second language teaching? Why do our students show revulsion in learning grammar? The answer to these questions can be explained logically. Grammar is not the only way to acquire a second language and at the same time we cannot exclude it from language teaching. We make mistakes in the method and level of presenting grammar to students. Almost all nations have changed their second language teaching model and classified language teaching modules according to the needs of the learner. They do not teach grammar that is excluded from language teaching. They teach grammar alongside the language teaching course. They teach grammar in a practical way and do not threaten students by showing them as rules to follow. Grammar is taught to them in application along with their course so that students never show revulsion in learning grammar. Grammar should be taught theoretically as rules only to students seeking mastery of a language. The basic need of a second language learner is to learn communicative language. In the communicative competence model, the purpose of learning grammar is to learn the language of which the grammar is a part. Instructors then teach grammatical forms and structures as they relate to meaning and use for the specific communication tasks that students must complete. Our traditional methods of teaching grammar have failed to provide the communicative purpose of a language and now new methods provide the communicative competence. We can compare the traditional model and the new model of communicative competence for teaching the English past tense: Traditional: grammar as an end in itself Teaches the regular form with its two pronunciation variants Teaches the doubling rule for verbs ending in d (for example, wed- married) Hand out a list of irregular verbs for students tomemorize Practical exercises with patterns for –ed Substitution exercises for irregular verbs Communicative skill: grammar for communication purposes Distribute two short stories about recent experiences or events, each half of the class Teach the regular –ed form, using verbs as examples present in the texts. Teaches pronunciation and the rules of doubling if these forms occur in the texts. Teaches the irregular verbs that occur in the texts. Students read the narratives, ask questions about points they don't understand. Students work in pairs where one member has read Story A and the other Story B. Students interview one another; using information from the interview, they then write or orally repeat the story they have not read. To be more clear we can say the traditional method of teaching grammar in schools as a prescriptive method and the new method as a descriptive method. These teachers embraced the notion of prescriptive (also called traditional or scholastic) grammar. Grammar was taught as a discrete set of rigid rules to be memorized, practiced, and followed. During the height of the entire language movement, when teaching grammar in isolation became taboo, these teachers were frustrated and dismayed by the lack of grammar teaching in the classroom. English teachers of later generations, on the other hand, joined the profession by embracing ideas of descriptive (also called transformational) grammar. These teachers believed that grammar teaching should be tailored to the user's purpose. Teachers have found that descriptive grammatical theories are more flexible, reflecting actual use and self-expression on "correct" structures. Some attribute to the descriptive approach a general loosening of rules regarding grammatical structures that were once considered unacceptable, such as split infinitives. With the widespread establishment of standards and high-stakes tests, students are expected to recognize and use correct grammar. Teachers can no longer afford to assume that students acquire an accurate understanding of formal language structures through reading, writing and speaking. Furthermore, they cannot even assume that prescriptive or descriptive approaches, taken in isolation, are individually effective. Rather, English and language arts teachers must embrace the idea that teaching grammar, like any other content area, should reflect current pedagogical approaches. Grammar instruction should be personalized to meet students' needs and should weave prescriptive and descriptive practices into relevant and meaningful instruction. Good teaching practice begins with assessment and planning. Start building your grammar instruction plan by comparing what students need to know with what they already know. Identify standards. In this standards-based era, the school curriculum may dictate the teaching of grammatical skills at each grade level. If the skills are not labeled as grammar skills, use the proofreading/editing skills listed in the writing standards. These standards clearly identify what students need to know and what teachers are expected to teach. Determine what students know. The next step is to determine what your students already know through an assessment. Caution must be exercised during this assessment; It's easy to test surface knowledge of a grammatical concept without testing underlying knowledge. Many students will be able to.