In the nineteen-seventies a major debate centred around what the focus of a language syllabus should be. Some methodologists advocated abandoning the older grammatical syllabuses (with lists like verb to be, there is /there are, present continuous, present simple) in favour of functiona (with lists like introductions, invitations, apologies, requests, etc.). The argument was that studying grammar failed to show what people actually did with language. It was suggested that we should teach functions first and the grammar would come later.