The tidal waves of change away from grammar and book based instruction are no longer coming, they are here. We in TPRS can take a deep breath. Each state is in a slightly different place on this, of course, but CA and CO are certainly on board with ACTFL – it is a legal thing now that grammar is not required to be taught in Colorado foreign language classes. To repeat, there is nothing in the law that says that we have to teach grammar.
A miracle has happened. The moment my state adopted its new standards, since none even mentions the word grammar, I was no longer required to teach grammar (I mean the old kind of grammar – you know what I mean) anymore. In fact, if I am aligned with the standards, I’m really not supposed to do that kind of fill in the blank work and those funky six part verb conjugation charts.
It’s over. It’s inked. That grammar stuff is no longer part of the curriculum (it hasn’t been in the ACTFL standards – at the national level – since 1983). Now, hopefully, it doesn’t take ten years for teachers to figure that out. I hope some teachers don’t do like those elephants in India who, staked to a rope around one of their legs since childhood, never walk away from the stake, even though the rope may have been removed for years.