In what ways is the traditional grammar approach inadequate in studying a language? Discuss with examples.

When I was in college ('99-'03), phonics was out and the
holistic approach to teaching reading was in.  Since then, I think the pendulum has
swung back toward phonics again.

Anyway, the "traditional
grammar" approach is a lot like teaching phonics.  It is teaching grammar by isolating
parts, rather than looking at how grammar works inside of sentences and paragraphs (and
conversations).  This type of teaching is inadequate when it is never brought back to
looking at the whole.  There needs to be a balance between "traditional" grammar lessons
and big picture "why is this important"
lessons.

Traditional grammar by itself is like teaching
vocabulary lists without any context.  Students may be able to learn rules and
regurgitate answers for a quiz or test, but ultimately, without application (or a reason
to care), they lose it.

I've also
found in teaching writing that students are often able to pick out major grammatical
mistakes without knowing exactly how to fix them, or worse, they cease to catch the
major mistakes.  Again, traditional grammar (isolated focused lessons) makes it hard to
see multiple problems going on at the same time.  However, without the traditional
grammar lessons, problems are identified simply by "it sounds wrong" rather than by an
actual understanding of how the language works.