I agree with Paul's comments about the age factor, and want to add that my original comment about English teachers who seem to hate grammar was meant primarily to refer to college-level people. This is the level I am most familiar with. In my experience, speaking anecdotally again, most secondary English teachers are very much in favor or grammar, though I'm sure there are exceptions.
It is mostly the college-level people who have taken the incorrect conclusions of the Braddock and Hillocks reports and mounted intense, aggressive campaigns against grammar teaching at both the secondary and the college levels. I'm sure there are exceptions, but this has been my experience. Of course, what the college people say often filters down to the secondary level, either in official policy or just in lore, so either way it does its damage.
Tim
Tim Hadley
Research Assistant, The Graduate School
Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
Texas Tech University
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Paul E. Doniger
Sent: Sat 10/1/2005 9:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hostility toward grammar teaching
Christine,
Excpet for liking math, I'm with you (but I like music theory, which is a kind of grammar, too). It seems to me that most of the people who are hostile to teaching grammar are English teachers of my generation or a little older - I'm 58 (a.k.a., they're my colleagues). I just heard this week some anti-grammar comments from an otherwise excellent English teacher. Some attitudes will only change, I suspect, as the old guard retires; however, though the newer generations may be more open to teaching grammar, they may not be well enough prepared to teach it (we've been seeing a thread on this issue again recently). What you say about beliefs that are puzzling rings home to me, too.
Curiously, I am rehearsing my theatre kids in The Mouse That Roared, and there's a line from professor Kokintz in response to the question about his Q-bomb -- a WMD of immense power -- that it's "a peace weapon." I see that as a laugh line!
Paul D.
Christine Reintjes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Who are these people who are hostile to grammar teaching? Are they people
who aren't knowledgeable about grammar and feel threatened? Why is it hard
to define grammar? Isn't it the structure and patterns of a language? I'm
wondering what is really at stake here.
I find grammar studies interesting and fun. Am I unusual? It's probably a
combination of nature and nurture like most things. I also like math, and I
know some people say they detest math, but no one suggests that as a reason
not to teach math. I'm glad to learn about this controversy which I've been
unaware of most of my life. I began my career as an ESL and college English
teacher at my community college in 2000. I was amazed to learn that
teachers were forbidden to teach grammar. I'm still amazed. It's so
puzzling, but then many beliefs are mind boggling to me like usi! ng violence
to make the world peaceful.
--
Christine Reintjes Martin
[log in to unmask]
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Stahlke, Herbert F.W."
Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
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