I really really strongly disagree. I'll admit it's a personal thing - I know of some people who can only learn a language by memorizing all of its rules (typica

I really really strongly disagree. I'll admit it's a personal thing - I know of some people who can only learn a language by memorizing all of its rules (typically people who have gone through their education based on rote memorisation as well), but I have yet to see a 5 year old who knows anything of the 'formal' rules of the grammar of their language, yet getting to the level of a 5 year old native is already a huge accomplishment for most people who only learn a second language when they are an adult. I think most people would be best served learning a language by not learning about any grammar 'rules' at all (maybe some simplified rules of thumb here and there for illustration and anchoring of skills - I'm not saying everyone should have to build their own grammar mental models from scratch through osmosis, but they should be introduced after a basic level of competence with the construct, not up front). As is remarked above - I'm sure this is a convenient way of teaching, because you can just tick off boxes of discrete 'components' ('does my student know the rules to conjugate in this and this past tense? check!), but there is a weak correlation to actually being able to use the language. I learned most of my language skills in both English and French by listening to rap music, transcribing it, translating into Dutch (my native language), repeating it and mimicking pronunciation etc. If anything, having to learn the grammar rules made the actual language acquisition harder. My best French teacher was one who, after asking in desperation 'how can I get you boys to be interested in learning French?' and me (mockingly) suggesting we analyse some MC Solaar CD's, then actually went out and got some of those, and contacted her Parisien neice to give us some of the backstory on the slang used in them, too. Then again, I'm bitter about many of the traditional teaching methods and I have no proof my anecdote scales to the general population, so my opinion is worth about as much as... well, something that's pretty worthless I guess...