"Grammar teaching" is a controversial term. This paper deals with the teaching/learning of grammar of a second language. One school of teachers/linguists asserts that the most effective way to develop competency in L2 is through the inductive process of "acquisition", i.e. through meaningful interaction between L1 and L2, and that the formal teaching/learning of grammar is detrimental to optimum acquisition because it focuses the learner's attention on the form rather than on the contents, the meaning. Another school of pedagogues/applied linguists/psycholinguists asserts that grammatical competence is a sine qua non of communicative competence and therefore must be taught/learned formally. A growing movement among language teachers and psycholinguists--more so than among theoretical linguists--believes in "an underlying assumption that working towards grammatical accuracy does not mean sacrificing fluency" (Celce-Murcia 406). This last assumption constitutes the hypothesis of this paper.
Few people have had as much influence on modern language teaching methodology as Stephen D. Krashen. In the 1970s and 1980s, his "Second Language Acquisition Theory" was at the basis of perhaps a majority of foreign language instruction . . . at least in the United States. His theory, in turn, found its premises in three propositions, viz. the "acquisition-learning distinction", the "natural order hypothesis", and the "Monitor hypothesis". These three propositions constituted Krashen's "Comprehensible Input Hypothesis," which included his "Affective Filter Hypothesis", i.e. how affective variables relate to the process of second language acquisition. However, Krashen's thinking lost some of its assurance with the passing of time and the growing opposition of his colleagues. Krashen came to believe that learning grammar "does have an effect, but this effect is peripheral and fragile . . . Conscious knowledge of grammar is available only as a monit...