The article is devoted to the role of grammar in an ESP class – to students who don’t specialize in English and need English primarily for professional reading. The authors argue that the most important language skill in English for special purposes in the framework of tertiary education is academic reading, which serves as a basis for developing academic speaking and academic writing skills. Teaching academic reading is impossible without a formal and systematic study of grammar. The principal grammatical phenomena needing special attention are outlined and several types of exercises which can be used in teaching grammar are recommended. It is shown that in some cases grammatical analysis provides cues for contextual guessing.