Scott Woods wrote:

> Listmates,
> Are there any studies of the effects of grammar learning rather than 
> instruction?  That is, do any studies look at what students have 
> learned of the grammar of a language and how well they have learned 
> it, especially in relation to changes in their writing and reading 
> skills, rather than at grammar instruction, what the teacher did and 
> asked them to do?  It seems to me that we should be concerned with the 
> effects of instruction, measurable by what students learn, and with 
> the effects of learning, measurable by what students can do with what 
> they have learned.  If we jump from instruction to measuring the 
> effects of learning, without measuring the learning, we would seem to 
> be making an invalid logical inference by assuming that learning took 
> place.  Are their existing standardized tests to measure grammar 
> knowledge, including both accuracy and rate?
>  
> Scott Woods
>
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Scott,

I suppose you're not talking about the use of 
transformational-generative theory (in very simplistic form) as it 
applied to sentence-combining, the panacea for teaching students how to 
write more syntactic complex sentences. Sentence-combining was a hot 
topic in the late 70's and early 80's and some still employ it. I use it 
in my style classes, for example. Max Morenberg (of our list) wrote an 
excellent text for that technique that many writing teachers like me use 
today.

Researchers then used counting t-units as a way of measuring students's 
acquistion of syntax skills.

Marshall

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