It has been debated a lot whether accuracy, based on grammar and vocabulary, or fluency, based on effectiveness and understandability of the communication, should be put on more emphasis. However, not long after communicative teaching methodology has been practiced, teachers have found emphasis on fluency does not help improve at all. On one hand, if students need to or want to take any English test, they have to be accurate. On the other hand, if students want to speak or write in English in real-life situations, for example, making a presentation or writing a thesis, they still cannot express themselves clearly and effectively without grammar. Even native speakers of English need grammar in above situations.

4. Grammar and accuracy are different. The real problem is how grammar is taught.

Grammar is important; grammar itself is not the trouble-maker. The real problem is Taiwanese teachers’ poor knowledge of grammar. It is like what usually happens in a math class. An equation is formed and solved, but how can one use that in daily life?

Students cannot improve if they can practice only in the classroom and with the textbook. Therefore, when a situation really comes, for example, helping a foreign traveler finding his way on the street, they do not know what they have learned in class can help them speak in English. Teaching grammar is not about teaching rules or forms; teachers should tell students how grammar is used in daily life.

To be more specific, one should look at “how” students form an English sentence both in speaking and writing. EFL students use translation to speak and write. As a native speaker of Chinese, learners sure think in Chinese in the first place and then translate or interpret the sentence by themselves before saying or writing it. If they say or write any Chinglish sentence, most of the time the mistake lies in the sentence structure, not vocabulary or other grammatical items. For example, no one will make mistake when saying “I love you,” but many do when saying “I very much love you,” which is the word order of the original Chinese sentence.

This is how grammar is important when communicating in English. When I was in school, none of my English teachers ever addressed that point, and unfortunately, it is still happening. Moreover, when we were busy remembering the verb forms, our teachers failed to tell us when and why to use a specific tense, and before long, we were told fluency was more important than grammar. Therefore, the wrong interpretation of grammar makes students hate grammar and not want to learn it well. What is more interesting, it seems that teachers also consider grammar unimportant in English communicative ability without noticing the fact that actually most of them teach grammar in a wrong way.

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