Iversen wrote:And does that contradict what I have stated earlier, namely that you shouldn't get your grammar presented dropwise as most text books do now? No, because there we are talking about showing a whole map instead of just what's around the next corner.No, because you are not supposed to learn the whole map by heart. But knowing the map will make it much easier to place all the subsequent observations correctly the first time. And then you will soon discover which roads are the busy ones.
I agreed with the general thrust of your post, but I would take issue with the above bit. I assume 'dropwise' is giving as much grammar as is needed for the whatever is being studied at a particular time? I think this is entirely justifiable and also correct, in that there is no sense in presenting a complete host of grammar rules (even as a basic skeleton) when a student following e.g. a course isn't going to meet it for a while. In any case a lot of courses feed important pieces of grammar in advance of topics requiring it, presumably in order to plant the seed. Usually by referencing something like the subjunctive which turns up in a sentence under discussion. Leaving the student free to look up the reference or not.
I don't know that there is a disagreement really, because I'm in favour of skipping through a 'précis de grammaire' or concise grammar of the type I was enquiring about in another thread I made some time ago. More like the type you used to find in the front or back of dictionaries which gave you that concise grammar 'roadmap' you referenced, to keep in mind whilst moving through the language. And that these would be expanded upon and fleshed-out as you progress.