The value of grammar in foreign language teaching has been a focus of debate for decades and the focus of the debate has been on. 

Despite many different views about the role of grammar in language learning, the importance of grammar cannot be denied. Second language researchers, methodologists and practitioners have commented that grammatical competence is essential for communication ( Brown, 1994a; Larsen- Freeman, 1991) and there is often an inadequate treatment of grammar in most communicative syllabuses resulting in lower level of accuracy than the cases under formal instruction ( Hinkel and Fotos, 2002) . Most research has agreed that there is a positive role of instruction for grammar learning. For example, Hinkel and Fotos ( 2002: 10) argue that grammar teaching ‘ can enhance learner proficiency and accuracy and facilitate the internalization of its syntactic system. Designing tasks and curriculum that build on what learners already know represents one of the strengths of explicit grammar teaching within the format of communicative and interactional activities. ’Other research shows that instructed learners are found to outperform uninstructed learners in their rate of learning and level of achievement ( Long, 1988) . 

The debate about the value grammar in foreign language teaching is still going on. Perhaps the answers to whether grammar should be taught and to what extent grammar should be taught depend on certain variables in the language teaching/learning context, such as learner variables and instructional variables. For example, it is believed that teaching grammar is less important for children than for adults, and it is less important in listening and reading than in writing ( Celce-Murcia, 1991) . In most cases, grammar is still being taught, especially in formal classroom language teaching. Besides, varieties of grammar-focused approaches are still widely used in certain educational contexts and success stories are not difficult to find. 

There are different ways of presenting grammar in the classroom. Among them, three are most frequently used and discussed; they are the deductive method, the inductive method, and the guided discovery method. 

The deductive method relies on reasoning, analysing and comparing. First, the teacher writes an example on the board or draws attention to an example in the textbook. Then the teacher explains the underlying rules regarding the forms and positions of certain structural words. The explanations are often done in the student’ s native language and use grammatical terms. Sometimes, comparisons are made between the native language and the target language or between the newly presented structure and previously learned structures. Finally, the students practise applying the rule to produce sentences with given prompts. 

In the inductive method, the teacher provides learners with authentic language data and induces the learners to realise grammar rules without any form of explicit explanation. It is believed that the rules will become evident if the students are given enough appropriate examples. For example, in order to present the two forms ‘this is’ and ‘these are’ , the teacher will first hold up a book, saying ‘This is a book.’ He or she will do the same showing other objects. Then the teacher holds up several books and says ‘These are books.’ After several similar examples, it is hoped students will understand that ‘these are’ is used with plural forms of nouns. Then students are invited to apply the newly presented structure to produce sentences with given visual aids or verbal prompts. The teacher tries to say nothing except to correct when necessary. Finally, but optionally, the teacher may elicit the grammar rule from the students. 

In the guided discovery method, students are presented with contextualised scenarios illustrating a specific structure. Students are then guided to discover the underlying rule of the structure as well as its meaning in context followed by explicit teaching and learning of the target structure. 

本题考查语法在语言教学中的角色以及语法教学方法。 因此考生可从阐 述语法在语言教学中的角色以及三种语法教学法着手组织答案。