To my opinion, the importance of independent aspects of language studies depends on what you want from a language in the first place. In my second year at the University, I was working on a project on Milton's <em>Paradise Lost</em>. I couldn't exaggerate how greatful I was for my grammar lessons back then - I wouldn't be able to work through a single line without them. There are quite a few people, in fact, who study languages for reading in them. J.R.R.Tolkien even studied Finnish to read Kalevala in the original, although he didn't ever need to speak Finnish.

However, most people need languages to communicate. In English, you will be able to do that with 4 tenses and most basic vocabulary, but you have to be fluent. If speaking and understanding is your aim, you can have more spoken practise and less grammar lessons.

I know it is frustrating for most people that school education is focused on vocabulary and grammar, but I think the reason for that is necessity rather than decision. With 30 kids in a class and 3-4 hours of foreign language a week, a teacher simply has no time to develop every student's oral skills. Grammar, on the other side, is something you can explain to the whole class. When I changed an ordinary school to one focused on English, where language was taught in smaller groups, I was shocked by the amount of conversation practice compared to my previous school.

My boss, who also doubles as one of my Korean language "parents", told me yesterday that she firmly believes that I need to just speak first. It's not easy, but I'm slowly getting braver.  She, her husband and another friend of mine are all there to steer me in the right direction if I mispronounce something or use the wrong word.  They really are like parents; they gently correct me when I get it wrong and use lots of praise and encouragement when I get it right!  :) 

I'd like to believe that, with quality of live increasing, more schools will be able to hire more language teachers and therefore teach in smaller groups. If you study in a group of 5-7 people, even with 3-4 classes a week you can cover quite a lot. In large classes, during oral practice a few people study while the rest of the class is doing nothing. Some teachers try to compensate by asking students to discuss some topic in pairs or groups, but I personally don't believe that works very well.

I taught English on elementary and pre-intermediate levels to large groups of adults as well as children (about 20 people) and I encountered all those difficulties myself. To my opinion, the only way out is roundtable discussions - they really tend to get everybody involved. However, they are much more effective with adults than with kids. In a class of schoolchildren, a group of about 5 people will be active and the others will be trying to do nothing (or text, or do homework). Adults are more motivated to practice because, well, they paid for the courses. Sad but true.

Fluency, in my opinion = vocabulary. In other words, the more words you know, the more fluent you are. Grammar usually sits at the other end of the spectrum. 

For me, I don't agree with the assumption that the two can share the same status, nor can they be discussed in the same context. To me, I think grammar is more important, especially in Asian languages like Korean and Japanese, where without grammar, you won't know how to order words, conjugate words, and express simple things that require grammar. 

However, learning grammar is a finite process, unlike vocabulary (there are only a fixed number of grammar rules - measured on the scale of hundreds, and an even smaller subset that is used in everyday situations, but there are tens of thousands of words to contrast that with). That means that grammar should precede learning vocabulary. Usually, in my past experience, for the toughest language grammar wise I've studied so far (Japanese), you can cover all the most common grammar points in about half a year. 

And after that, you can safely move on to learning more words through reading and / or listening (whichever strikes your fancy), which moves you up the fluency ladder. 

So in other words, both are equally important, but not for the reason that they have the same degree of importance in the language, but because grammar is a pre-requisite for fluency (or learning new words), without which you cannot express yourself in an appropriately intelligible manner. 

In my opinion I'm thinking that It's more important fluency.

Listening and speking with other teach us to acknoledge our own mistakes and listening how people speak correctly.

When the time pass we improve our accuraccy and make less mistakes.