Focusing on four skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing) for second or foreign language learning is the characteristic of communicative approach. After applying communicative syllabus for more than 35 years, the proficiency of learners are still dissapointed. Their communicative competence in grammatical points are not satisfied. There are many ill sentences when speaking or writing. The reason is that language teaching focused on speaking fluency. As a consequence, experts in syllabus design thought that language structures  were not important.  This can be understood because communicative approach criticised structural approach that focused on language structures. Leech and Svartvik (2002) proposed a new method to remedy this situation. The role of grammatical competence can not be denied in producing good sentences. According to them, grammatical structure are related to meanings, uses and situations. There are four competences for learners in order to gain their proficiency: grammar competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategies competence and discourse competence.  This paper focuses on  grammar competence in teaching Mandarin as foreign language.

Key words: language learning, communicative grammar, grammar competence