I teach at a very small, private college that teaches classes on several
campuses.  I teach the Modern Grammar course on this campus that is
required of Ed students who will teach English, ESL or Bilingual
Education.  We used to require these students to take History of
English, also, but no more.  It has been difficult to find teachers for
the satellite sites and we increasingly rely on people who have gotten
their M. Ed.(s) in English, with mixed results.

In the past, I have used a functional approach, but we are now using
Grammar for Grammarians: Prescriptive, Descriptive, Generative,
Contextual by Parker and Riley.  This is my first semester with this
book and my class starts tomorrow, so I am not sure how it will go.

I have an M.A. that I wrote myself, but which is very similar to degrees
that used to be called Applied Linguistics.  It was basically a
combination of English, linguistics, education and foreign language
classes.

Janet Castilleja
Heritage University
Toppenish WA

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 10:29 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Who Teaches the Grammar Course?

Andrew,

Historically, the course I now teach (on the books as "Traditional 
English Grammar and Usage") was taught by an unapologetic, died in the 
wool prescriptivist with a background in English, but not composition or

linguistics. She would let students take tests over and over until they 
had "mastered' a unit. She had a very loyal and appreciative following 
because she invested a great deal of her own time and energy 
accomplishing what she and many students thought was important-using the

language "correctly," at least as well as she was able to define 
correctness and measure it with follow-up tests.

At one point, there were objections in the department, and the course 
description was amended to include a requirement of orientation to 
linguistic grammars along with the "traditional".

Two other people taught it prior to myself. One was an English teacher 
who, as I was told, told her students it would be "painful, but useful".

The other was a language teacher (Slavic languages) who had much wider 
background in languages, but tried to teach this course in a more error 
focused, workbook manor because he thought that was what was expected. 
His view was that the course is almost unteachable.

My own background is in English with an emphasis in composition, 
including teaching writing to nontraditional students (sometimes poorly 
named as Basic Writing.) My own approach has been to approach 
traditional grammar from a functional perspective. Because I couldn't 
find a text I was comfortable with, I wrote my own and revised it on the

basis of its usefulness with several classes. What I know from 
linguistics has mainly been gathered through my own study and the help 
of many people, ATEG very much included.

There are people in the English department who like and deeply respect 
what I am doing. For the department as a whole, it is rather low 
priority. I suspect that most don't feel the course requires much 
expertise.

Teaching majors on this campus, at least last time I checked, have been 
able to fulfill a language study requirement in a number of ways, 
including a single survey course in linguistics, which includes only a 
few weeks on "syntax." Education professors have mentioned that graduate

students have very little background in language and see it as a 
problem. It is hard to talk about implementing language in the 
curriculum when the teachers themselves have little or no background 
knowledge to bring to bear.

NCTE's own standards say teachers should know a great deal about 
language, but they have never followed that up with recommendations for 
specific courses, and, until recently, they have coupled that with a 
position that formal grammar study should not be part of the English 
curriculum. Students need to "acquire" language, but do not need to know

about it. Historically, at least, the view is that teachers need to 
guide the acquisition, but not pass on their own knowledge in the 
process. It has been very much a mixed message.


Craig



Andrew Smyth wrote:
>
> Dear ATEG members:
>
> I'm researching who most typically teaches the grammar course (or 
> preferably two or more classes involving study of language, grammar, 
> and/or methods of incorporating language instruction into one's 
> curriculum) in programs that prepare secondary education students in 
> English Language Arts. Are people with PhDs in linguistics more 
> commonly recruited? Or those with some combination of linguistics, 
> education, comp/rhet, etc.? I'd love to hear about the backgrounds of 
> people who typically teach such courses at your instititutions.
>
> Thanks so much,
>
> Andrew
>
> Andrew Smyth
>
> Assistant Professor of English
>
> Southern Connecticut State University
>
> 501 Crescent Street
>
> New Haven, CT 06515
>
> (203) 392-5113
>
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
> 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/
>

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