Teaching Grammar Without Teaching Grammar

“The past is always tense, the future perfect.” ― Zadie Smith

It’s parents’ favorite worry. It’s a hot discussion topic at children’s parties. It takes pages and pages in coursebooks. It’s the number one assessment focus of EFL classrooms. It’s teachers’ nightmare or glory. It causes heated debates on social media, among teachers: Grammar. Or else, tenses. This is what Grammar is normally reduced to. Because teaching Grammar means teaching the tenses, mastering their names, knowing how to conjugate the verb; the verb, which like a tiny acrobat stretches…