[Manuela]

Grammar is not essential in teaching English I feel. I don't think that students learn how to speak if they know the names of tenses. Teach them however that they need this specific form to say this specific thing and they'll retain it.
For example when I teach the Present Continuous/ Progressive I give them the name of the tense when students can already use it. Theycan answer for example the question "What's the weather like?" with "It's raining."In this example I ask them which is the verb(oops, is this grammar?) , we put "rain" in a box and then draw a heart around"'s" and another heart around "ing" and say that this is the tense and We use it to show that something is happening now.
Later when someone says something like " I am play the piano" I simply ask what's missing and the class answers the second heart and the person who made the mistake can correct themselves.

I also make students remember that this is how we say it in English. For example I get students to remember how to answer questions like> What is the environment made of? What can be recycled? What is the environment polluted with? without giving them the slightest explanation about the passive voice. Yes I translate to make them understand what these questions ask
but then they have to learn how to answer those questions and I revise them each class in the beginning until almost everybody can manage an answer.
I also teach and practise all those small talk questions about where people live, what they do, what star sign they are, how tall they are, if they have a brother or sister, what their names are, if they have pets....
In this way by the end of the year they have a stock of questions and answers in their memory that hopefully will enable them to start a conversation with someone and keep it going.
I also teach them a lot of traditional songs. In this way they memorise structures and vocabulary. If I have taught can for ability, then I also teach them the Scottish song Billy Boy. (Where have you been all the day Billy Boy?
I've been walking all the day with my charming Nancy Grey, And my Nancy tickles my fancy, Oh my charming Billy Boy. Can she cook a bit of steak? She can cook a bit of steak Aye and make a girdle cake. etc" Through the song they also practise the correct rhythm and intonation, stressing the verb and not "can", pronouncing can with an open a in the question and with a schwa in the line "she can cook".
The beginning of the song includes examples of present perfect and present perfect progressive which of course have not been taught yet but they get retained in the students memory through the song and later when they get to learn the use of those tenses they have a reference point when they learn to
get the forms of the new tenses right.