Why all the questions about prescriptive grammar?

[Scott.Sommers]

I agree that there are severe problems encountered using alternative methods, but that's partially because these methods are so poorly understood at a conceptual level. I doubt that even inexperienced and poorly trained foreign teachers would have much trouble teaching basic grammar and correcting students when their usage is wrong. And that's why foreign teachers (even the ones that you're referring to) tend to fall back on these methods at some point. The truth is that I'm no different, but I do believe that there is a workable alternative.