If the goal is to acquire grammatical competence, speaking is rarely used as a learning procedure.
Rather, speaking is perceived as the result of learning processes and, moreover, as a particular challenge:
the high speed with which knowledge must be available and the limited capacity of working
memory create complex conditions for the mental processes of spontaneous oral production.
Furthermore, lack of assurance due to limited means of expression, fear of making mistakes and
receiving negative assessments lead to the widespread principle "Learn now, use later". The present
paper postulates that this is not just a fallacy, but a counterproductive behaviour that has negative
repercussions on the development of both grammatical and speaking competence.
Starting from a differentiating view of the concept of grammar, the article first focusses on the mental
requirements of language performance and language acquisition. It then outlines a number of
principles that provide a general theoretical basis for foreign language grammar learning. What
emerges is that the requirements for oral production in L2 correspond exactly to the conditions that
characterize the development of grammatical competence. Nevertheless, inclusive proceedings are
rarely put into practice, due to a number of factors, which are then summarized. The article concludes
with a series of user-oriented examples of practice, which correspond to the principle "use as
you learn, learn as you use" and which support the appropriate processing of grammatical knowledge
together with speaking competence.
