Eduard,

I'm sorry you've had that experience.  I'll grant that too much grammar
teaching since the 60s has had too much theoretical overhead--it took me
a long time to break out of that myself.  However, good, and even great,
grammar teaching and learning goes on in spite of the theoretical or
philosophical approach, not because of it.  I've seen grammar texts use
a more formal syntax to great success, and I've seen others approach the
subject matter functionally, traditionally, or systemically with equal
success.  A great deal depends on the teacher understanding the
students' goals, even if the students don't understand them completely.

Herb

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduard C. Hanganu
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 7:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Grammar Certification

John, 

A degree will not give you the knowledge and the training needed for 
teaching. You need to educate yourself on matters which interest you.
Especially so in TESOL education. I said, and I am repeating it, only 
a few monolingual Americans can teach English as a second language 
because they do not know what it takes to learn a foreign language. I 
saw this clearly during my language education. The grammar they teach 
in TESOL courses is usually a terrible hodge-podge of outdated and 
useless Chomskian theories, or sentence-structure grammar ( with 
complicated tree structures )which is too advanced for anyone but 
theoretical linguists.
 
I always move ahead of my instructors, and look for the information 
which would help me acquire the knowledge and the skills which will 
allow me to teach effectively language.

Eduard 





On Wed, 30 Aug 2006, =?Windows-1252?Q?John_curran?= wrote...

>Helene and Dabro,
>  Re TESOL - I have almost finished a Masters in TESOL but am 
disappointe=
>
>d=20
>in the practical applications of the course for a practicing 
teacher.=20
>Although semantics and sociolinguistics are interesting they are of 
littl=
>
>e=20
>help to the housewives in Yokohama. Of course I realise that these 
studie=
>
>s=20
>give us many insights into the language. I am interested Dabro in 
which=20=
>
>
>elements of your TESOL focussed on the teaching of grammar and what 
kind=20=
>
>
>of grammar - traditional grammar, linguistic grammar or what?
>               John
>
>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web 
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