Geofrrey:

The claim that teaching students "parts of speech (or any other 
grammar term for that >matter) when learning them makes absolutely 
no difference in their ability >to speak, write, or even take 
standardized tests (where there are no grammar >questions, only 
usage and syntax)" cannot be supported empirically. I have in my 
research collection more than 30 articles which show that teaching 
grammar to students makes a clear difference.

As a foreigner, I can also attest to it with my personal experience. 
I have learned to write well English because I studied grammar, that 
is, parts of speech, parts of sentences, and all.

I have a question for you: how can you students identify the simple 
subject, the simple predicate, and the objects in a sentence if they 
do not know the parts of speech?

Eduard 




On Tue, 22 Aug 2006, Geoffrey Layton wrote...

>It sounds as if this thread is running out of steam, but I wanted 
to jump in 
>here with some of the difficulties I have had with my students 
(inner-city 
>high school) and their frustration (and mine) with the great "parts 
of 
>speech hunts."  You all know the drill:  "Find the (FILL IN PART OF 
SPEECH 
>HERE) in the following sentence (paragraph, etc)."
>
>Here are examples I put on the board, asking students to determine 
the part 
>of speech of
>"run/running" in each sentence.  "I like to run."  "Running is 
fun."  "She 
>is running."  "I bought a pair of running shoes."  "He tripped on 
his 
>shoelaces while running after the dog."
>
>Suffice it to say that the success rate is low.  However, 
regardless of 
>their knowledge of "formaL grammar, every student can successfully 
create 
>sentences using exactly the form shown, even though they may have 
no idea 
>what part of speech they're using to do it.
>
>Therefore, my question to myself, to them, and to this group is 
simply this 
>- why try to teach them parts of speech (or any other grammar term 
for that 
>matter) when learning them makes absolutely no difference in their 
ability 
>to speak, write, or even take standardized tests (where there are 
no grammar 
>questions, only usage and syntax).
>
>Geoff Layton
>
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