As soon as `the teaching or grammar' crops
up the `in isolation', `dead boring', etc.
allegations also rise. Why does this not
happen when people talk about teaching mathematics?

We really ought to face the fact that grammar as a
school discipline is an approach to Linguistics in no
lesser measure than school maths is an
approach to Mathematics.

By the same token, do we ever doubt that school maths
will result in students' better ability to count small change?
Why then do we doubt that students' better ability to write
will be the result of their being taught grammar?
Sophie
----- Original Message -----
From: Nancy Patterson <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 10:24 AM
Subject: Re: Grammar and Literature -- Help Please


> Geoff,
>
> What I think you have discovered is that learning has to be meaning-based.
> It has to be meaning-full.  And it has to have a meaningful context.
Let's
> face it.  If the isolated teaching of grammar turned students into better
> language users, it would.  Believe me (and Susan Ohanian who has paid even
> closer attention to this than I have), the vast majority of English
> classrooms out there still provide traditional grammar instruction.  But
> that instruction is either so meaningless to students that they can't even
> remember getting it, or it is so distasteful or disconnected that students
> didn't learn much.
>
> The issue that we should be talking about here is not whether or not
grammar
> should be taught, but HOW it should be taught.  And it seems that the
> systematic teaching of grammar is not the best approach.  Meaningful
grammar
> instruction has to be more organic and tied to a context.  That is what
all
> the learning theory points to, by the way.  I'm not talking about just
> grammar here.  All learning generally requires a context.
>
> I think what surprises me most often when I read discussions on this list
is
> the lack of consideration for what we know about how people learn.  The
> people on this list are probably not representative of the way most
children
> learn, especially the subject of grammar.  Children do not seem to bring
to
> awareness their knowledge of grammar  through the isolated teaching of
that
> grammar.  It makes no sense to them.  What does make sense to them is
> conversations about the language they use, and then frequent, meaningful,
> and "just in time" individual direct instruction about particular problems
> they are having.
>
> For what it's worth, I don't think NCTE is "anti-grammar."  In fact, I
think
> that's a rather ridiculous assumption.  I DO think NCTE members are trying
> to say quite clearly that there has to be a better way to teach grammar,
to
> define grammar, to deal with grammatical issues in meaningful ways.
>
>
>
> Nancy G. Patterson, PhD
> Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
> Portland, MI  48875
>
> "To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone
can
> learn."
>
> --bell hooks
>
>  [log in to unmask]
> http://www.msu.edu/user/patter90/opening.htm
> http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html
>
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