A popular myth that has surfaced in both of my seminars on Educational Linguistics is that German teachers are no longer allowed to teach grammar. This is, of course, nonsense — what do we need language teachers for if not to teach us the structure of language? However, as with all myths, it has a basis in fact: in line with the general policy shift from a focus on form towards a focus on function, the current RLP assigns linguistic structures only a ’supporting function‘, secondary to the primary aim of creating ‚functional communicative competence‘. This has been taken to imply that lessons devoted entirely to grammar are now disallowed, which will make any linguist smile (or weep) who does not believe in the difference between grammar and communicative competence. Teaching language is teaching structure.
Irena Reinhardt disentangles the matter for us, surveying the changeing role alloted to (explicit) grammar instruction in the classroom and investigating suggestions made in recent curriculum-related publications by German authorities.