I appreciate Bob Yates' update on research on immersion in
second-language acquisition.

I did not mean to imply that I think the role of grammar instruction
would be the same in first- vs. second-language acquisition. As I wrote
in my post, a native speaker of English comes into the language arts
classroom with a lot of subconscious grammar knowledge. A
second-language learner does not. It therefore seems clear that grammar
instruction might be of more utility for the second-language learner.

The native-speaker situation is not clear-cut, of course. We have
complications of various sorts. One is that many children are coming in
to school having internalized grammars of other dialects than the
standard. Another is that children who already know standard English are
familiar with the academic variety to varying degrees, depending on
factors such as how much they have been read to at home, what levels of
language they have been exposed to, and how their linguistic
interactions with adults and older kids have gone forward. Another
problem is that middle-class English is undergoing changes that are
passed on to children, but that are still resisted by grammar
authorities (e.g., loss of 'whom'; subject pronouns in object position
in conjuncts). 'Correction' of these would be confined to school, and
would not be modeled consistently in the rest of the child's experience.

I stick by my assertion that grammar instruction cannot do the whole
job, or even the major part of the job, in cultivating ability in
standard English in children. That's not to say it's useless. Perhaps it
provides a basis, first in basic facts about English grammar (no
pedagogical grammar covers all of English grammar), and second, in the
_practice_ of being conscious of language structure and taking an
analytic approach to language. I'm still convinced that generous
exposure to the target form of the language is crucial, along with
generous opportunities to write and speak it. One cannot become fluent
in any language variety if one has to consult grammar rules while trying
to produce language; structures have to be internalized and automatized.

There are certain aspects of written language, such as punctuation
rules, which depend on language structure. It is enormously helpful to
know grammar when learning punctuation rules -- in fact it's hard to
imagine learning punctuation rules without being able to talk about
various constituent types, etc.

I guess the spirit of my original post was to warn against exaggerating
the role of grammar instruction in cultivating mastery of formal
standard English. This also has some PR value, of course, since it
'appeases' whole-language advocates who insist that language experience
is crucial.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
                                       **
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~