Is learning grammar important?

Grammar should be a supplement, not a requirement

Question: Is learning grammar important?
Position‹3 of 3: Learning grammar is useful, but not necessary
Argument‹2 of 3›: Grammar should be a supplement, not a requirement

While learning grammar can be useful, it should not take up a bulk of students' time because the time could be better spent on more important communication skills. Instead, grammar should be taught only when spare time is found, or even as an elective course.

The argument

It can be useful and even fascinating to some to understand the inner workings of language, sentence structure, and grammar rules, and the argument concedes as much at the outset. Knowing grammar can help one to write more fluently and communicate more effectively. The claim being made is therefore about necessity rather than value: grammar is unnecessary to learning how to communicate because it is something which is innately learned as one learns reading, writing, and speaking skills. A learner acquires the patterns of a language by using it, long before any of those patterns are named, so formal instruction describes a competence the learner already has rather than supplying one they lack. If that is right, the only real reason to study grammar is as a supplement or a hobby — an interest in how the machinery works, pursued by those who find the machinery interesting. And such interests are not evenly distributed. Not every student is going to be interested in learning grammar, and since it is nonessential to learning English, it should be given only as an elective course for those who are enthusiastic about language and grammar, where the enthusiasm makes the study worthwhile. The final consideration is the cost of the alternative. Classroom time is finite, so every hour given to one subject is taken from another. If it makes it into the general classroom at all, it should only be when there is extra time to spare. Otherwise it is a waste to take time away from learning the essential skills of reading, writing, and speaking in order to study grammar — that is, to displace the abilities that actually carry communication in favour of a description of them.

Premises

[P1]Grammar can aid fluent writing and effective communication, but it is innately absorbed as one learns to read, write, and speak, so it is unnecessary for learning to communicate. [P2] Since it is nonessential, formal grammar study should be an elective for enthusiasts rather than taking classroom time away from the essential skills of reading, writing, and speaking. [C] Therefore, grammar should be a supplement, not a requirement, making it useful but not necessary.

Counter-arguments

Studying grammar should be a requirement because many people today lack the essential foundational skills to boost their proficiency in reading, writing, and speaking. Their communication skills are poor because they have not been required to study grammar to the same capacity as it has been taught in the past, with some students never having studied it at all. In fact, many teachers today seem to be struggling with grammar, and if they are struggling with basic communication skills, then how will our children fare? Forget supplemental; grammar study should be at the core of any English class, not sitting on the sidelines.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Grammar is the foundation of reading, writing, and speaking skills. [Rejecting P2] Grammar study should be a requirement, not a supplement.