Maureen,

You're on the right track now.  We need to develop our pedagogical grammar
using the best parts of contemporary learning theory (including multiple
intelligences).  That's one reason I want us to try to recruit elementary
teachers to ATEG.  They study pedagogy.  They can shed light on why grammar
teaching doesn't stick.  We know it would be good for every student to have
a grasp on the metalanguage of grammar.  Elementary teachers, whose job it
is to covey this metalanguage to children, might be able to help us find out
how to do it.  So how do we recruit them?

Jeff Glauner
Associate Professor of English
Park University, Box 1303
8700 River Park Drive
Parkville MO 64152
[log in to unmask]
http://www.park.edu/jglauner/index.htm


-----Original Message-----
From: Maureen Fitzpatrick [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 9:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A Blow for Grammar


Is there any room in this discussion for the concepts of multiple
intelligences, or is that something people would rather not get into? Isn't
it possible that for students with a strong logical-mathematical
intelligence, the patterns and form or grammar make a wonderful amount of
sense? Or that teachers who have an intuitive intelligence for spatial
relations might teach things like sentence trees more effectively? In short,
I don't think it is the subject but the relationship between one teacher's
take on language and the learning styles of the twenty-five people in the
class.

It seems like we have spent the better part of two decades recognizing that
different people learn and teach differently, but many people still want to
rush in to one-size-fits-all education. Of course grammar instruction won't
help a lot of students. Of course it will help a lot of students. But what
would probably help most is teaching matters of style (whether it be
subject-verb agreement or reducing wordiness) in a variety of ways rather
than just tossing a book to students and assuming they will absorb the
information they failed to absorb the first five times it was introduced to
them.

The thing about this discussion that interests me is that it really seems
like preaching to the choir - there isn't going to be a soul on the Assembly
for the Teaching of English Grammar list who doesn't think teaching grammar
is important. The question facing most of us is how to do it effectively for
the largest number of students - particularly those for whom traditional
instruction has failed so far.

Maureen Fitzpatrick
Associate Professor, English
Johnson County Community College

 -----Original Message-----

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