Ed keeps talking about teaching grammar as though grammar were separate 
from linguistics or sociolinguistics. It isn't. Any reason for teaching 
grammar at all is a sociolinguistic reason. And describing  grammar -- 
the way a language works -- is the task of linguistics. And linguistics 
does it better than the pedagogical tradition.

I found Amanda Godley's remarks very interesting and helpful. The focus 
on standardized tests is a problem. I don't know what other states' 
tests look like. The test practice exercises I've looked at for CA 
generally do not include testing knowledge of terminology. Several 
options for structuring a sentence -- usually provided in a _little 
bit_ of context -- are offered, and the students must choose one. 
Apparently, they are expected to use what they learn in grammar class 
to make the choice.

Of course, these choices will come naturally to some students while 
others will have to decide between items that sound right in their 
nonstandard home dialect and the "correct" standard forms. My own 
students worked some practice problems, and there was a clear 
difference in their performance depending on how much their home speech 
conformed to the standard. Most of my students speak standard English, 
but a version which has abandoned some of the older distinctions, like 
who/whom. On items which required choosing an irregular past tense or 
past participle, for example, the scores were near 100% for the class, 
but on who/whom questions, most had no clue how to figure out which 
answer was correct. So a major problem is helping students understand 
how to attack those questions whose answers vary from their home 
English. For pronoun case in conjuncts, for example ("Mary and me went 
to the store"), take away the name and "and". "Me went to the store" 
will be rejected. Same for "The teacher invited my sister and I to her 
house" -- "The teacher invited I to her house" will not fly with most, 
if not all, students. They then just keep the solo pronoun when they 
restore the rest of the conjunct.

Linguistics has produced these techniques for helping students become 
aware of their intuitive knowledge of grammar. These have been 
discussed on this list several times. I believe a number of them can be 
incorporated into grammar teaching as an aid to completing lesson 
exercises and practice tests. It wouldn't be necessary to bring in 
outside materials beyond, perhaps, a xeroxed handout or a transparency. 
Teachers can even simply write test frames on the board. Students can 
then work with the sentences in their books or in their own writing.

These can then supplement or replace the vague, confusing, or 
inaccurate material in the schoolbooks. "Complete thought" can be 
redefined as "complete sentence", which in turn is shown to be a string 
which can go into the frame "I am convinced that ___". The difference 
between count and mass nouns can be tested by having students try to 
put "much" vs. "many" in front of the noun. Transitive verbs can be 
discovered by attempting to put a noun phrase after the verb: "I slept 
the pillow" doesn't work, but "I fluffed the pillow" does.

Sociolinguistics has given us a method for teaching grammar 
successfully to students whose home dialect is not standard English: 
comparative grammar (presented, for example, in work by Rebecca Wheeler 
and Rachel Swords). This method simultaneously teaches children a 
number of things: (i) it shows the immediate usefulness of grammatical 
terminology and analysis as a way of comparing kinds of English to one 
another as well as just for talking about one's writing; (ii) it shows 
the students that nonstandard varieties of English follow just as many 
rules as standard varieties; (iii) it shows students how much language 
varies according to the context of use and the audience. Also, at least 
in the one test case that Wheeler and Swords report, it is successful 
-- students enjoy grammar lessons, master standard English, and succeed 
on standardized tests.

Basic sociolinguistics information is essential for teachers. Part of 
their job is helping to produce informed citizens. Teachers who 
continue to teach dialect-based prejudice and myths like "bad English" 
will perpetuate our discriminatory school system and society. They will 
also never rid themselves of the (often subconscious) lowered 
expectations they form for students who speak nonstandard English. 
Children perform largely in accordance with teacher expectation. Since 
grammar teaching has long been the very vehicle by which language-based 
prejudices are expressed, it is especially important for grammar 
teachers to have sociolinguistics education. What's silly is that 
current teachers and schoolbooks still teach that double negatives are 
illogical or that "they" can't be used as a singular indefinite because 
it is grammatically plural (so is "you"!)

... So I guess Ed dives into grammatical analysis with his students 
beginning with whatever sentences naturally emerge in their writing, 
whether simple or complex. It's true that this is what happens when you 
have students work on their own product. I don't see why one has to 
proceed thus, however. You have to start with simpler examples and work 
towards more-complex ones. I see nothing wrong with the teacher 
adapting some student sentences to simpler forms, working with those, 
then building them back up to their original forms.


Dr. Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
Linguistics Minor Advisor
English Department
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel.: 805.756.2184
Dept. Ofc. Tel.: 805.756.2596
Dept. Fax: 805.756.6374
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba

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