But it is difficult enough to teach one subject to young children let alone several at the same time. In an ideal world we would all have perfect grammar and understanding of out language but that has never been the case nor will it ever be. I have nothing to back me up here but I would guess that more people have good grammar skills now than ever but the proportion of people with good grammar skills who have been through a formal education has dropped. More people are educated today than ever, it may simply be a case of expposure, we know about terrible grammar now. It has certainly slipped down on the list of priorities though, I'll concede that.

With all of this in mind, how important are grammar skills? Seriously, for what are they essential? I need my grammar skills because I write a lot: essays, evidence of learning, documentation, reports. So I need to be concise, analytical, grammatically correct but I am still in formal education. My tutors mark me down for poor spelling and grammatical errors as well as for poor content so I have no choice. When I leave, however, unless I do any serious writing, I will only need to be perfect in my grammar if I choose to write copy or when I am creating promotional material for myself (we will ignore the fact for now that I'm actually going to be doing another degree). If someone just has to pop an email along to a colleague, so what if there are spelling mistakes, who cares if it is poorly punctuated or the syntax is just all wrong? If it can be vaguely understood and its message is communicated then what is the issue. I think exceptional grammar skills are rare but are also, for most people, unnecessary. Besides Word will check my spelling, hell, even my browser will check my spelling. Word goes even further and actually checks a whole range of different things.

I love grammar and punctuation and language in general, it's the sort of person I am. I will also help people with their skills if they so desire, but I don't think these skills are essential; they are barely even necessary.

Pete.