The question of how grammar is taught in different cultures has come up several times recently, as if other cultures necessarily have it right.  I'm pretty sure we don't, on the subject of grammar, but I'm not sure I want what goes with rigorous grammars in, for example, Saudi schools.  I have Saudi graduate students who are all experienced English teachers in Saudi schools, and they tell me, all of them, that regimentation and student and administration expectations give them very little room to try different approaches.  It shows up clearly in their exam answers in TESOL methods courses.

However, those reservations aside, Dick Hudson did a study a few years ago on how grammar is taught in different national school systems.  I don't remember the title of it, but you might be able to find it on his web site at
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/papers.htm 
The paper "Is grammar teachable" is definitely relevant to our discussion.

Herb Stahlke

>>> [log in to unmask] 09/18/01 04:04AM >>>
Hi!
I am intersted in comparative education and would like to cooperate with anyone
interested on the list.  Maybe we could write a paper on how grammar is taught
in several settings?  Contact me if you are interested.

We do two years of required grammar in my program which is designed for future
English teachers in Finnish public schools.
Here is a very brief summary of what we do:
In the first year, we use Leech and Svartvik (1994) plus other material and do
topics like countability, number and accord, definite and indefinite, simple
and progressive, past simple and present perfect, etc...
In the second year we use a variety of articles because we do more theory.
Students may take additional grammar courses as electives (TG, verb courses,
corpus studies, etc.)
Students also must study Finnish-English and English-Finnish constrastive
studies and other courses like writing which often focus on grammar.

Our students may study taped spoken English transcriptions in courses like
linguistic change and variation in English, sociolinguistics, phonetics,
discourse analysis, intercultural communication or other courses.
I think understanding the differences between spoken language and written
language is very important but I do not consider that grammar.
One could argue that it is a type of grammar but I don't see it that way.
All the Best,
Mike




Quoting Ed Vavra <[log in to unmask]>:

>       Since I took the time to read most of the messages that were
> posted, I hope members of this list won't mind my usual complaint. (If
> you do, use the delete button.)
>      I was struck by Rebecca's description of how she has students use
> tape recorders, and by the praise for her approach sent in by other
> members of the list. My initial reaction is that what she is doing is
> irresponsible and unethical. She may, of course, be able to prove me
> wrong, but I would like to see the evidence. I don't believe that she
> can effectively provide her students with a good analytical grasp of
> sentence structure, no matter what textbook she uses, in a single
> semester while doing what she says she does.
>      I note this in the context of Janet McClaskey's article in the
> September issue of English Journal. Although the article is not about
> grammar, McCloskey notes that two of her colleagues had been teaching
> students -- for twenty years-- that "because" is a coordinating
> conjunction. When one of the teachers looked it up, she was horrified by
> what she had been doing. McClasky claims that she can raise students
> test scores by, among other things, teaching them never to use a comma
> before "because." (The teachers who had considered "because" as a
> coordinating conjunction had been teaching their students to always put
> a comma before "because." )
>        I'm sure that some members of this list will want to argue the
> question of test scores, and some may even claim that "because" IS a
> coordinating conjunction. My question, however, is this:
>
> What evidence can those of you teaching teachers (and doing what Rebecca
> does) offer to show that students who pass your courses (future
> teachers) do indeed have a solid, conscious command of sentence
> structure? Among other things, will they know that a sentence such as
> "The plane crashed five miles from here, its tail pointed at the sky" is
> not a comma-splice? (Or will they mark such sentences in their students'
> writing as errors?)
>
> Having taught future teachers (an entire semester devoted to grammar),
> it seems to me that many of you are having a great party, but it is all
> dessert and no meat, potatoes, and vegetables.
>
> Just wondering.
> Ed V.
>



Dr. Mike Garant
School of Modern Language and Translation Studies  Room C 353
University of Tampere
Pyynikintie 2
FIN-33014 University of Tampere
Finland
Office phone 03 215 6134
Associate Editor of Academic Echange Quarterly (AEQ):
http://rapidintellect.com/AEQweb/ 

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html 
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/