Ed,
Latin has certainly contributed to the confusion, as has the whole
spirit of prescriptivism. And your argument for clear, stable
terminology is sound. I might point to a few terms in KISS that are a
idiosyncratic, like your use of "gerundive", but the point is that we
have to decide first what we need names for, that is, the content and
concepts, and then agree on terminology, with, inevitably, some room for
variation.
Herb
Herb,
This is in response to your earliest message. I think I've responded
to many of your questions, but I would note here that there might be a
possibility that the early resistance to grammar was also a resistance
to confusing terminology - especially in the teaching of English since
the early grammar books were based on Latin grammars.
I'd also suggest that we have major differences in perspective. Like
most members of this list, you discuss what you teach in your classes.
Students in K-12, however, have different teachers, and, as has been
noted many times on this list, many of the teachers are lost in current
grammatical terminology. I'm arguing for one (or several) clearly
labeled set(s) of grammatical terms such that the terms (and underlying
concepts) do not change on the teachers or their students from one year
to the next. Within a set, for example, it should be clear that
subordinate clauses either do or do not function as parts of main
clauses.
Ed
>>> [log in to unmask] 9/28/2005 12:05:18 PM >>>
Ed,
You've given some good reasons for why grammar is poorly taught, but
you're omitting one of the most important, that those who control
teacher education have been persuaded, largely by NCTE, that grammar is
either unimportant or harmful. As to student attitudes towards grammar,
David Mulroy's book shows students detesting grammar all the way back
into Classical times. Students, with notable exceptions, tend to detest
that which demands rigor, unless it's very well taught, as your KISS
courses and some of the others mentioned on this list seem to be.
I disagree that variation in terminology is the critical problem. There
has been varied usage in terminology for as long as grammar has been
taught in the Western tradition. It can be irksome, but in my classes I
tend to use the terminology use by the text I've chosen, and I choose
texts in part for the traditional use of grammatical vocabulary.
Currently, for example, I use the Greenbaum Oxford English Grammar,
which students find quite readable. I like it in part because it's
corpus based and so it doesn't mess with made-up examples. That means
that we spend some time working through some of his sample sentences
because they're not always simple. But students can learn, and need to,
that terminology about language varies just as it does in any other
major sphere of activity. Of course, exposing them to some of the more
abstruse arguments, terminological and otherwise, that we get into on
this list wouldn't be very helpful.
Herb
No, Martha, my students do not need a "lesson" on "be" verbs. They
were told weeks ago, orally and in writing, that "is," "are," "was," and
"were" are always finite verbs and are thus always underlined twice.
They just don't pay attention. They have been poisoned by the crappy
instruction in our schools which has made them believe that the study of
grammar is confusing and ultimately useless.
In 1983, Bill O'Rourke's "'Lion Tamers and Baby Sitters':
First-Year English Teachers' Perceptions of Their Undergraduate Teacher
Preparation" (English Education, Feb. 1983, 17-24) noted that the second
major complaint of practicing teachers was that their education had not
prepared them to teach grammar. The situation has not changed much, at
all. Does anyone on this list want to guess whom I hold responsible for
that?
Yes, in part I blame the students; but most of the blame goes to
those who teach teachers to teach grammar. Grammar could be the most
motivating, most important subject in the curriculum. Instead it is a
rotten corpse, perhaps even partially responsible for why many students
hate school.
Have a nice day,
Ed
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