Yeah that part of my comment was a bit sloppy (I didn't mention vocabulary originally and then foolishly added it in a later edit). Cramming vocabulary does help make input more comprehensible, but it should be noted that cramming vocabulary doesn't (by itself) cause you to acquire that vocabulary. Graded readers have been shown to also be very effective, despite a lack of vocabulary cramming (meaning that it's not necessary -- which is the point I was unsuccessfully trying to make). I do agree that it is a productive use of time (at least in the early stages of learning a language) and in my own language learning, I am cramming vocabulary.
However, consciously learning grammar definitely does not have significant enough returns to be worth the effort (it can help somewhat in certain cases, but comprehensible input has a much larger effect).
Yes, for grammar results are probably more contrasted, I can’t tell for sure since most papers I read are about vocabulary.
Personal experience however tells me that explicit teaching is a good way to know what’s going on, which is very valuable for highly grammatical languages. Again, in a perspective of "bootstrapping". I think what institutional language teaching is missing is that the needs of students, and thus the effectiveness of various methods, change with their proficiency. Like the fact bilingual dictionaries are better for beginners or intermediate learners while monolingual ones are more suited for advanced ones. Sadly, too often teachers (as well as students) are trapped in dogmatic approach where something is either good or bad on the whole spectrum...
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Yeah that part of my comment was a bit sloppy (I didn't mention vocabulary originally and then foolishly added it in a later edit). Cramming vocabulary does help make input more comprehensible, but it should be noted that cramming vocabulary doesn't (by itself) cause you to acquire that vocabulary. Graded readers have been shown to also be very effective, despite a lack of vocabulary cramming (meaning that it's not necessary -- which is the point I was unsuccessfully trying to make). I do agree that it is a productive use of time (at least in the early stages of learning a language) and in my own language learning, I am cramming vocabulary.
However, consciously learning grammar definitely does not have significant enough returns to be worth the effort (it can help somewhat in certain cases, but comprehensible input has a much larger effect).
Yes, for grammar results are probably more contrasted, I can’t tell for sure since most papers I read are about vocabulary.
Personal experience however tells me that explicit teaching is a good way to know what’s going on, which is very valuable for highly grammatical languages. Again, in a perspective of "bootstrapping". I think what institutional language teaching is missing is that the needs of students, and thus the effectiveness of various methods, change with their proficiency. Like the fact bilingual dictionaries are better for beginners or intermediate learners while monolingual ones are more suited for advanced ones. Sadly, too often teachers (as well as students) are trapped in dogmatic approach where something is either good or bad on the whole spectrum...