Inductive approach to finding the subject of a sentence:

Create a tag to go with the sentence, then use the pronoun in the tag  
to "erase" or replace the appropriate portion of the base sentence.

For example:

The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee will take a bus to  
New York City tomorrow.
Add tag: The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee will take  
a bus to New York City tomorrow, won't they?
[The students chosen to compete in the spelling bee] They will take a  
bus to New York City tomorrow.

This is a problem-solving approach, as it gives the student a  
procedure to apply to data in order to find a solution (identifying  
the subject of the sentence.) The student proceeds by constructing a  
tag, then using the pronoun in the tag to find the subject of the  
base sentence. It's very important that this exercise is for native  
speakers, who do not need to consult conscious knowledge to construct  
the tag; this is done in milliseconds and without deliberation. The  
"erasure" procedure is, however, done explicitly, with the check of  
the result relying on native-speaker intuition.

There are many such tricks, for tasks ranging from deciding what is a  
complete sentence, to deciding between 'who' and 'whom', to  
identifying participles vs. gerunds (among verbs ending in '-ing'. No  
explicit knowledge of grammar is needed to apply these tests; they  
are tools for making one's subconscious knowledge of grammar explicit  
and learning terminology and analysis skills to do so.

Deductive approach:

The subject of a sentence is the noun phrase that would be replaced  
with a pronoun in a tag added to the sentence.

To my mind, this would reverse the procedure: The student would look  
for the subject of the sentence, then create a tag, making sure that  
the pronoun in the tag agreed with the subject. The choice of pronoun  
would not be intuitive, but explicitly thought through.

Maybe this is bogus, but this is my understanding. To give an example  
from my German classes: I would present students with paired  
sentences, and ask them to discover a rule, in this case, verb  
placeement in subordinate clauses.

Peter war heute nicht in der Klasse. Er ist krank.   (Peter wasn't in  
class today. He is sick.)
Peter war heute nicht in der Klasse, weil er krank ist. (Peter wasn't  
in class today, because he is sick.)

Ich lernte in der Bibliothek. Nachdem bin ich schwimmengegangen.  (I  
studied in the library. Afterwards, I went swimming.)
Ich bin schwimmengegangen, nachdem ich in der Bibliothek lernte. (I  
went swimming after I studied in the library.)

Students would notice that the verb "moves" to the end when a  
sentence becomes a subordinate clause. This is the rule.

A deductive approach would be to state the rule: In German  
subordinate clauses, the tensed verb occurs at the end of the clause.
Then I would present the sentence pairs in order to demonstrate the  
rule. No action except paying attention and copying the rule is  
necessary here. To me, that's boring, dry, external to the learner,  
and not engaging.

To me, the first way of presenting things just seems naturally  more  
interesting and engaging. The students' own discovery of the rule is  
what, to me, gives the oomph necessary to retain the rule better than  
in the deductive method. The student might remember the experience of  
discovery more keenly than the dry presentation of the rule -- the  
accustomed way of learning language rules, which so many students  
find deadly boring.

In my experience of learning folk dances and drum rhythm sequences, I  
retain patterns better once I discover whatever logic they have --  
logic that is difficult for a teacher to point out unless s/he is  
quite talented. But this kind of learning involves motor skills,  
which, if Oliver Sacks is correct in citing and claiming in a recent  
New Yorker article, are stored elsewhere in the brain than factual  
knowledge (the procedural/factual difference). Perhaps I find  
inductive learning more interesting because it does draw on  
procedural skills, while deductive learning depends on memorizing  
factual statements, and applying them afterwards. Maybe the  
difference is not all that significant. But I truly believe inductive  
presentations are more engaging. I take care of the poor problem- 
solvers by providing a deductive statement as a kind of review.  
Perhaps this puts them at a disadvantage, but I usually have the  
inductive work done in groups, so weaker students can observe the  
stronger ones and still see what the answer is; they can also try the  
procedure quietly on their own paper and not be punished or  
embarrassed if they fail.


Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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