On Tue, 21 Oct 1997 15:47:11 -0400 H Thomas McCracken said:
>Thought the group might be interested in what guidelines for college Eng.
>and Eng. Ed programs were just passed by NCATE (Friday, October 17, 1997)
>in Wash. D.C. at the All-Boards meeting of NCATE.
 
I always find these lists interesting for what they expect pre-service
teachers to know.  I often think that they expect such teachers to have
a Ph.D.  Clearly, the writers of such a list must have some ideas of
the kinds of perspectives they expect will be taught.
 
>3.1  the program prepares the preservice teacher with knowledge and
>understanding of the English language; as a result, the preservice teacher
>will
>        3.1.1  understand language acquisition and development;
 
What aspects of language acquisition and development are to be understood?
The speech community's influence or the innate predisposition that all
children have to learn language.  In a world in which even in rural Missouri
teachers will have non-native speakers of English in their classroom does
language acquisition include second language acquisition?
 
>        3.1.2  demonstrate how reading, writing, speaking, listening,
>                viewing, and thinking are interrelated;
 
I have no idea what is being considered here.  Can someone help me?
 
>        3.1.3  understand the impact of cultural, economic, political, and
>                social environments upon language;
>        3.1.4  understand and respect diversity in language use, patterns,
>                and dialects across cultures, ethnic groups, geographic
>regions,
> and
>                social roles;
What is the level of understanding?  That they occur or how "little" or
"great" the divergence of particular dialects are?
 
>        3.1.5  understand the evolution of the English language and the
>                historical influences on its various forms;
 
>        3.1.6  understand English grammars;
 
I find the plural here interesting.  Are pre-service teachers expected to know
some of the differences between the grammar of American English and British
English or standard and non-standard grammars of English OR are they expected
know competing descriptions of English grammar?  If the latter, which competing
notions does NCATE seem to think worthy of inclusion?
 
>        3.1.7  understand semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology;
 
I think I can come up with the kinds of syntactic, morphological and phono-
logical concepts teachers need to know, but I wonder what semantic concepts
are crucial.  Why doesn't this list include pragmatics?  It is through prag-
matic expectations of the reader/listener that we get the given-new ordering
in a text (see Brock Haussaman's paper in the latest Syntax in the Schools).
 
         3.1.8  understand the various purposes for which language is used.
 
Which of these statements says that pre-service teachers need to control
standard English?  Which of these statements suggests that students should
be able to identify the form and function of most common constructions in an
English sentence?  (Dick Hudson asked such a question recently on the Linguist
list.)
 
Bob Yates, [log in to unmask]