[This message was originally submitted by  [log in to unmask] to the ATEG
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To Mary Ann Black:
 
I think we assume that there was a time when future English teachers all
graduated with such matters as homonyms and punctuation firmly in hand. I
suspect that this was never the case. I suspect that new teachers learned
these things on the job, in the process of "teaching" them, and then
assumed that they had always known them. In my job, I often see the work of
experienced teachers of my generation, and I'm surprised at what they still
don't know. There are a lot, for example, who don't spell "definite"
correctly. And I'm sure that I do know my homonyms, but I'm always finding
myself using that wrong "there" and "its."
 
In addition, I have experimented numerous times with trying to teach one of
my teacher-education classes to correct an error that most of them make. I
even tell them that I'm going to do it, and I bet them that they will fail
to learn what I'm trying to teach. Sometimes it's to put their periods and
commas before the quotation marks, and other times it's to use apostrophes
for possession correctly. Usually they do fail to learn whatever I choose
to "teach." I hope to make this a lesson in humility for them, but it often
fails to take. I had one student this semester who wrote a rubric saying
that students must use apostrophes correctly, even though I had pointed out
several times that she herself was clueless on the topic.
 
On a brighter note, I chose to teach my grammar class to spell "definite."
On the midterm, when I asked them to explain a bit about definite articles,
24 of the 25 students misspelled the word. On the final, only one did. Of
course, several contrived to write about articles without using either
"definite" or "indefinite," which is pretty hard to do. I call that a
magnificent copying mechanism.
 
Bill McCleary
 
>[This message  was originally submitted  by [log in to unmask]  to the ATEG
>list]
>
>Future teachers of English need to know some basic elements that, I'm
sorry
>to
>say, many of them do not know.  For example, please make sure they have
the
>homonyms straightened out --their, there, they're; its, i'ts; your,
you're,
>etc.
>They also should have some idea about correct punctuation, particularly
>commas
>and the poor misunderstood apostrophe.  Undrstanding agreement
>(verb/subject
>and pronoun/antecedent) and correct pronoun use would be helpful.  Truly
>many
>of the usage problems we see everyday we see in new teachers.  I sometimes
>wonder if we're beating a dead horse here.  After all, these new teachers
>are
>college graduates; maybe their misuse and lack of understanding of the
>language is not such a big issue in the "real" world.  Don' t you wonder?
I
>do
>feel like a dinosaur sometimes.
>Mary Ann Black
 
 
William J. McCleary
Associate Prof. of English
Coordinator of Secondary English        3247 Bronson Hill Road
SUNY at Cortland                        Livonia, NY 14487
607-753-2076                            716-346-6859
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