Introduction

In order to analyze the place of grammar in language teaching, analyzing the

language learning process and stages would clarify the importance and the role that
grammar plays within the communications of thoughts and ideas among people.
When it comes to interpreting the learning process, i would prefer to observe and
learn from the process that a child experiences during language acquisition stages,
as in my opinion is one of the best resources to examine and study in order to attain
the proper technique and methods to teach English to the students. Certainly during
this procedure, considering the students psychology and learning style plays a
significant role in finding the best method to teach English in the most efficient way.

Place of grammar
In order to develop the communication ability, the initial language components that
need to be developed are language components such as phonemes, morphemes,
lexemes, syntax and context. As a child begins to develop communicative
behaviors, the initial stage that begins this process would be creating sounds and
vowels which are not necessarily meaningful. Through this stage the child learns the
phonemes and begins to repeat the vowels and sounds that he/she has heard and
has been recording (unlike morphemes which are the smallest unit of language as
well as being meaningful). As the language acquisition advances, the meaningless
sounds turn into morpheme which leads to advancing to being able to shape
meaningful sentences and eventually the child learns the syntax and context. These
major components will be meaningful when they are combined with grammar,
semantics and pragmatics. This is the stage where the grammar plays its
significant role in making humans able to transfer their thoughts and ideas and all
the communicative abilities. Its due to the structure and frame that the grammar
delivers within the roots of each language. Each sentence would earn its meaning
and each thought would become transferable because of this frame and body that
is generated by the grammar rules. All of these components complete each other
and depend on each other. As it is noticeable in children or the people who are
experiencing initial development stages of their language skills, knowing the
phonemes and morphemes and lexemes alone wouldnt lead to creation of
meaningful communication, yet lack of these components along with the grammar
and syntax and semantic and pragmatics cannot lead to meaningful interactions.
In order to produce a meaningful conversation it is necessary to have the initial
components of that language, but these components cannot deliver the proper
meaning as long as they are not followed by the set and frames rules that are
originated within the bounds of grammar to create the link between each
component, either to understand people and definitions during engaging in
listening, reading activities or when producing the definition and transferring

thoughts during engaging in speaking and writing activities. The rules of grammar
have generated the authority to create meaningful interaction (along with other
components that are co-dependent in delivering the meaning) and connect each
individual with the surrounding environment.
When it comes to teaching English to speakers of foreign languages, certainly
knowing about the components of the languages that the students speak can
simplify and prevent the difficulties that the students may face in learning English.
In certain situations where the students share different cultures and languages, it
may not be possible for the teacher to know and speak each and every students
language. But the general idea is being familiar with the other languages that the
students speak can be quite helpful. The teacher can use the differences and
similarities in a certain language with English to his/her advantage. What I am
referring to isnt using translation method to teach English which has been proven
to be an inefficient method of language learning. But some of the students tend to
compare their L1 or other languages with English when they are starting to learn
and during advancing at different levels. Therefor the teacher can anticipate the
similarities and the differences among L1 and English (or with other languages) to
avoid and help the students confusion and prevent the mistakes that are stem from
translating one language to English.
If the teacher has sufficient knowledge of his/her students L1 or other language
grammar, it certainly is useful and can help with implementing a more efficient
teaching method and technique. Some of the mistakes that students make are due
to the translating their thoughts into English according to the grammar of another
language. When the teacher does not have the knowledge about the grammar of
other languages that their students speak, resolving these type of issues may be
more difficult since the teacher does not know the root and the reason why of
occurrence of such mistakes.
In my personal experiences as a speaker of foreign languages (English, Turkish,
French and germen) and based on the book by Gabriel Wyner (fluent forever) one of
the most efficient ways of acquiring a language is to transfer the thoughts in that
certain language instead of thinking in L1 or another language at the first step and
afterwards translating that language into the target language. The class
environment and different contexts and role playing during activities in the class
can help creating such environment to start to think and create thoughts in the
target language frame. As students learn to adapt their thoughts to English they can
become more fluent in speaking and grammatically accurate. As in each language
grammar acts as the string that connects each component of language to each
other and creates meaning through its bounds, sufficient knowledge of grammar is
necessary for people to communicate and understand each other within a certain
set of rules that everyone follows and obeys. A teacher of English language can use
these rules in different languages to simplify the learning process for the students.
As I believe that in order to attempt to solve a problem, finding about the reason

that caused the problem at first place is one of the steps of overcoming the issue. A
teacher can find about the roots of the problems by knowing the frame and
structure of their L1 grammar and prevent the occurrence of such mistakes in
further learning stages.

Conclusion
Grammar plays a significant role in language and without the set of rules and
structures that grammar has created the possibility of interaction would be lost
since everyone would use their own set of rules and would use different structures
and eventually this would lead to confusion and loss of meaningful communication.
Also the teachers knowledge about the patterns and structures of his/her students
grammar rules enables the teacher to understand the learners psychology in a
deeper manner and provides the teacher with solutions to the learners issues while
lack of knowledge of students grammar would not result in inability to teach
English to speakers of foreign languages, certainly having the knowledge can be
useful.