What is grammar?

Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express

ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we
can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and
others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity,
and exploit the richness of expression available in English. And it
can help everyone--not only teachers of English, but teachers of
anything, for all teaching is ultimately a matter of getting to grips
with meaning.
(David Crystal, "In Word and Deed." TES Teacher, April 30, 2004)
Why do we need grammar?

A knowledge of grammar has a proven impact on writing, reading,

mastering your own language, learning foreign languages, and also
general thinking. Professor David Crystal… explained that
“sentences exist to make sense of words; grammar makes sense of
sentences”.
So grammar is bound up with the meaning and effect of what we
write and say; it gives us the words to talk about the choices we
make when we communicate. Of course, you can get by without
learning grammar, but to borrow an analogy from Professor Crystal,
it’s like driving without knowing the names for the parts of your car.

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/07/need-grammar/
(David Crystal: British linguist, academic, and author.)

Knowing about grammar, says David Crystal in The Cambridge

Encyclopedia of the English Language (Cambridge University Press,
2003), means "being able to talk about what it is we are able to do
when we construct sentences--to describe what the rules are, and
what happens when they fail to apply."

Why does grammar matter?

Grammar is important because it is the language that makes it

possible for us to talk about language. Grammar names the types of
words and word groups that make up sentences not only
in English but in any language. As human beings, we can put
sentences together even as children—we can all do grammar. But
to be able to talk about how sentences are built, about the types of
words and word groups that make up sentences—that is knowing
about grammar. And knowing about grammar offers a window into
the human mind and into our amazingly complex mental capacity.

People associate grammar with errors and correctness.

But knowing about grammar also helps us understand what makes
sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and precise.
Grammar can be part of literature discussions, when we and our
students closely read the sentences in poetry and stories.
And knowing about grammar means finding out that all languages
and all dialects follow grammatical patterns.
Appeared in a report published by the National Council of Teachers
of English (NCTE).