> Herb,
May I say how much I agree with your three points below. The situation is
exactly the same in England.
With reference to (1): the present generation of young teachers have no
grammar knowledge to speak of; they therefore lack any desire to teach it,
and, inevitably and notoriously, the idea of developing pedagogical skills
for teaching it is furthest from their minds. A gross example of this
ignorance is the chapter 'How do we teach grammar?' by Jane Lodge and Paul
Evans in 'The Challenge of English in the National Curriculum' (R.
Protherough and P. King, Routledge, 1995, pp. 99-118), a guide for new
English teachers), an article that hardly dares mention a grammatical term
and disappears into an assessment of a poem by Philip Larkin that bears no
relation to its GRAMMATICAL structure.
As regards (2): we too have vocal groups for whom the notion of
'correctness' is limited to 'do's and don't's'. They have no conception of
how awareness of grammatical structures can be taught in concert with the
improvement of students' rhetoric and their command of Standard English.
Incidentally, vis-a vis the 'OREO' discussion, such prejudice against
Standard English-as-white must be met head on. In Britain it takes the form
of an inverted snobbery that sees Standard English-as-posh. Rather heed
Bertolt Brecht's advice, that the working-class needs all the education it
can get.
And as for (3), you are right to suggest that a 'scholarly traditional
grammar' on the Jespersen-Quirk lines is all we need at the lower levels.
After all, except for an occasional foray into modern linguistics to arouse
a healthy curiosity, there is no need to delve into remote technicalities.
I find that teaching a sense of the rhythm, balance and contrast of good
prose goes hand in hand with teaching grammatical structure (see Virginia
Tufte's remarkable books).
Edmond
Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33
Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
Patty and Rebecca,
>
> The two of you have expressed a realistic statement of the situation we face.
> We've gone through fifty years of resistance to grammar teaching that was in
> one way or another all of the things it's been described as by various
> participants. It was a reaction to bad pedagogy, to bad content, to a desire
> to place emotional and personal growth over the rigor of a discipline, to the
> growth of constructivist pedagogy, to sloth, to ignorance, and you could
> probably suggest a few more. It probably had something to do with global
> warming as well.
>
> But where we stand now is that
>
> 1. We have a cadre of teachers two generations deep who have not been trained
> in grammar.
>
> 2. We have school boards, PTAs, Chambers of Commerce, and other interest
> groups all of whom think that grammar should be taught and that the content
> should be about correctness, about dos and don'ts.
>
> 3. We have widespread disagreement over content within the discipline, with
> some advocating a narrow prescriptivism, some a traditional school grammar as
> Ed Schuster calls it, some a more formal syntax under the influence of
> linguistics, some a traditional scholarly grammar in the vein of Jespersen and
> Quirk (me, for one), and some nothing apart from rhetoric for speech and
> writing.
>
> The ATEG Scope & Sequence project is an attempt to cut through this by
> proposing a developmentally and linguistically valid curriculum that will
> provide students with a vocabulary and with concepts and analytical skills for
> talking clearly about a wide range of language problems. Getting NCTE to buy
> into this agenda will continue to be a struggle, but it's only a part of the
> ongoing struggle we're involved in.
>
> There is no question that it's frustrating. All of us have felt that, some of
> us for most of our careers. People like Ed Schuster, Martha Kolln, and I have
> been at this for forty years. But we have to continue the fight, because it's
> the only way we'll improve language arts education, and we've probably got a
> better shot at it now than at any other time in the past half century.
>
> Hang in there!
>
> Herb
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Patricia
> Lafayllve
> Sent: Sun 9/3/2006 9:46 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Grammar Certification
>
> Rebecca writes:
>
>
>
> Children need direct instruction. Using code-switching and anything else
> that is meaningful is so desperately needed. But the students studying to
> be teachers need to be taught this stuff so that they can squeeze it in to a
> jam-packed day. AND we need to have teachers that know how to speak
> standard english.
>
>
>
> Sorry to be so frustrated. It seems hopeless.
>
>
>
> Rebecca Watson
>
>
>
>
>
> I am also feeling pretty frustrated - and I'm not even done with my graduate
> work yet!
>
>
>
> What I'm seeing is a circular argument. We need to teach grammar more
> effectively (there is a lot of disagreement on how, but we seem to agree
> here). We also need to include societal awareness of language variation,
> class issues, etc. There do not seem to be effective books which cover
> these issues (yet!), which means we are "handicapped" when it comes to
> teaching grammar more effectively. Lather, rinse, repeat.
>
>
>
> Unfortunately, I have no specific answers to my own concerns. I keep hoping
> the discussions here will bear some fruit - right now there's a lot of
> dissent, which is healthy, but not a lot of practical application. I'm
> here, and I'm hanging in, because I learn a great deal from the majority of
> these posts. My hope is that this, along with my studies, will help me
> become a better instructor in the long run.
>
>
>
> Still - it can be very frustrating.
>
>
>
> -patty
>
>
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
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>
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>
>
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>
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