Why is English grammar not important for spoken English learners?

Answer 1

This is a very general, somewhat challenging question, but an interesting one!

I'll give it a try and let me know if this begins to answer this big question. Note: my answer is coming from the perspective of English-speakers in the United States as a whole, not English-speakers from other countries.

English grammar may seem unimportant for spoken English learners in general. My belief is that this comes from quite a few different things.

1)Detailed grammar work is uncommon in the average public school classroom in the United States. This varies greatly, but compared to many other countries with other languages as their primary language, most children in the United States receive basic grammar instruction and it doesn't usually get into diagramming sentences or prioritizing naming/identifying parts of speech beyond a noun and a verb, maybe an adjective or an adverb. More academically competitive schools often do focus a lot more on grammar, but that is the exception in my experience. If it is taught, it is usually a fairly brief lesson, and after a quiz or test, it isn't a primary focus long-term.

2) Many English-speakers in the United States grow up only speaking one language if they speak English at home, until they take foreign language in middle or high school. Since their framework is monolingual (again there are SO many people who are bilingual or multilingual in the United States, but they usually are speaking a language other than English at home), they are not used to using grammatical markers/identifiers as a tool to compare languages.

3) English grammar often doesn't follow rules and patterns quite as neatly as some other languages, and the same is true for English spelling and pronunciation. So, English grammar is perhaps most easily internalized by reading and listening to spoken and written English and having our brains naturally organize the many irregulars without thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule", but just how that particular word works. The human brain is actually wired to learn language, so this is true for all languages. You don't actually have to know grammar rules (know what they're called and how to explain them, etc.) in order to use them correctly if you are exposed to enough of the language and the opportunity to interact with it in meaningful ways. Knowing rules can speed up some processes a little bit, and can ease anxiety around language learning when it's not a first or primary language, but our brains naturally organize and refine this knowledge without any explicit grammar structure being taught.

4)United States dominant culture and its education system are less formal than many other countries' and I think this also has had an effect on formal, traditional grammar instruction.

Like I said, you asked a big question! Is this helpful?

-Marie