> Paul, Eduard and Herb,
I made the point in my message of the 19th of August that drawing a parallel
between teaching Standard English to native speakers and the teaching of
fluent speaking in a foreign language is fallacious. The aims are quite
different, and therefore the argument cannot be used against the teaching of
grammar. In England the anti-grammar battle began with an attack by Andrew
Wilkinson on teaching grammar (NATE bulletin, Vol.1:2, Summer 1964), his
main evidence being three research papers which he claimed 'proved' that
teaching grammar had no effect on the quality of students' writing. I took
the trouble to check his references, and found that they did no such thing:
one was merely on the teaching of parts of speech in a very antiquated,
mechanical fashion; one merely checked the teaching of clause analysis in
one lesson a week that pursued no connection with style against success in
writing; and the writer of the third was not wholly convinced by the
supposed lack of relation, largely because she found examples of exceptional
teaching of grammar that DID produce an improvement in writing.
Incidentally, in the front of this last thesis was a form on which all who
consulted the thesis were supposed to write their names -- mine was the only
name on the list.
One anti-grammarian, F. D. Flower (in 'Language in Education', London,
Longmans, 1966, p. 214), was unwise enough to concede that 'teachers of
Professor Gurrey's calibre' could teach grammar and produce good results in
writing, but dismisses the majority of other teachers as hopeless (see P.
Gurrey and J. H. G. Grattan, 'Our Living Language: A Guide to English
Grammar', London and Edinburgh, Nelson, 1957), which points to a different
conclusion (that method and not syllabus choice is the issue) from what he
was recommending! So many anti-grammarians fulminate about the bad grammar
teaching that they had themselves, and on that account dismiss the study of
grammar: I myself had a teacher (Muriel McCarthy) who made the study of
grammar fascinating, and I now realise that she did it in Virginia Tufte's
manner, always making a close connection between grammar and style, whether
she was teaching language or literature. Thomas Bloor has an amusing remark
relevant here:
'Mention 'noun' or 'verb' or 'passive', and numerous teachers, advisers,
and inspectors foam at the mouth and rave. There are good historical
reasons for this: they were bitten by mad Miss Fitchett and the sickness is
incurable.' ('Learning about language: the language studies issue in
secondary schools', 'English in Education', Vol. 13:3 (Autumn 1979, 18-22;
see p. 20)
Edmond
Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England
Email: [log in to unmask]
Website: http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~elw33
Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256
Paul,
>
> In the first place, you are making a generalization. Generalizations
> are logical fallacies. To claim that *we are all in favor of
> teaching grammar* is a fallacy, because you haven't taken a poll of
> all the people who are members of the forum in order to find out
> what their perspective is on grammar teaching.
>
> In the second place, recently some people have posted messages which
> implied that learning English grammar doesn't benefit students, and
> someone said that he was learning Spanish with Primisleur (if you
> know what that is) and that he thought that was would not need
> explicit knowledge of grammar to achieve fluency in Spanish. I
> interpret these messages as statements against explicit language
> structure learning, e.g., against teaching grammar.Would you like me
> to bring to your attention every message of the kind?
>
> I think you should take a FULL poll of the members of the forum in
> order to find out where we stand. It is all right for you not to
> agree with my *view of ATEG* I haven't expected that. We all have
> different perspectives, and we need to learn to accept the
> differences and work together.
>
>
> Eduard
>
>
>
> On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Paul E. Doniger wrote...
>
>> Eduard,
>>
>> I don't think I misread you; however, I don't agree with your view
> of ATEG. We are all in favor of teaching grammar -- that is why we
> exist. We simply have a variety of ideas about what, when, and how
> to teach it. If anyone reading this thinks we should NOT teach
> grammar, please let me know.
>>
>> What is your evidence that there are anti-grammar attitudes among
> the list?
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Eduard C. Hanganu <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 11:34:56 AM
>> Subject: Re: Scared of Grammar
>>
>>
>> Paul,
>>
>> I think that your statement that *everyone on this list is in favor
>> of grammar being taught* is fascinating, but doesn't seem to be
>> based on facts. Some of the messages I read on this list seem to
>> indicate something different. I wonder what the problem is that you
>> keep misreading me.
>>
>> Eduard
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 24 Aug 2006, Paul E. Doniger wrote...
>>
>>> I would add to Herb's fascinating response that it is my
>> understanding that everyone on this list is in favor of grammar
>> being taught. Where we differ is in how it should be taught, when
>> specific concepts should be taught, how much of it should be
> taught,
>> etc. I don't completely understand Eduard's complaint here since
>> nobody on this list has attacked grammar instruction in general,
>> only some aspects of past instruction and methods; in fact, most of
>> us have attacked the NCTE anti-grammar stance and criticized the
>> lack of grammar instruction in education today. I think we all love
>> (or at least like) grammar.
>>>
>>> Paul D.
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message ----
>>> From: "Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:26:52 AM
>>> Subject: Re: Scared of Grammar
>>>
>>>
>>> Now relax a bit, Eduard. Those who oppose grammar teaching, to one
>>> degree or another, have legitimate grounds for doing so, given the
>> way
>>> grammar has been taught in the schools. Let me give you one
>> example. A
>>> couple of years a go, a Florida high school student and his teacher
>>> successfully challenged a grammar question on the SAT. The
> question
>>> involved the so-called Possessive Antecedent Prohibition (PAP),
>> which
>>> claims that a sentence like
>>>
>>> Einstein's work on relativity established him as the leading
>> theoretical
>>> physicist of his time.
>>>
>>> is ungrammatical because "Einstein's" is possessive and therefore
>> cannot
>>> serve as antecedent for the pronoun "him". A careful study of
> this
>> rule
>>> and its history, by Arnold Zwicky, established that the PAP was
>> invented
>>> in the mid-1940s, that grammars before that do not mention it. It
>> has
>>> since crept into general handbooks like Fowler and has come to be
>> widely
>>> accepted even though there never was grounds for it in English
>> grammar.
>>> Granted, some possessive antecedents, as in
>>>
>>> Mary's mother's cooking gives her indigestion.
>>>
>>> are poorly crafted and result in ambiguity or even vagueness and
>> should
>>> be avoided, but this is a matter of careful attention to clarity,
>> not a
>>> point of grammar, even though the problem can be described
>>> grammatically.
>>>
>>> In the successful SAT challenge, the sentence contained a PAP, but
>> that
>>> was not what the test was looking for in determining what was
> wrong
>> with
>>> the sentence. In this case, widespread misinformation won the day.
>>>
>>> You can read Zwicky's account at
>>> http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~zwicky/adshand.pdf#search=%22Zwicky%
>> 20poss
>>> essive%20antecedent%22
>>>
>>> You can read about other SAT grammar problems at
>>> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001863.html
>>>
>>> Much of what has been taught as English grammar is social,
>> stylistic, or
>>> simply not so. I don't question that the social and stylistic
> must
>> be
>>> included in language arts, but they need to be taught as that, not
>> as
>>> rules of grammar.
>>>
>>> Of course, many English teachers have objected to grammar teaching
>> also
>>> because the pedagogy has been so bad. This is a baby/bathwater
>>> situation, though, and one of the things we're trying to do is
>> improve
>>> the pedagogy. Improving the content is the other major part of the
>>> effort.
>>>
>>> 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 24, 2006 7:28 AM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Scared of Grammar
>>>
>>> Hello, all!
>>>
>>> This is supposed to be a "grammar lovers" forum, right? But why
> are
>>> so many post on this list from people who atack grammar and state
>>> that teaching grammar does not make sense, and makes no difference
>> in
>>> writing? The explanation appears to be quite simple: these people
>> do
>>> not like grammar, do not understand grammar, and do not want to
>> teach
>>> grammar. Their posts indicate that they are fighting as hard as
>> they
>>> can to avoid the inevitable.
>>>
>>> Of course, grammar cannot cause any improvement in student writing
>> if
>>> those who "teach" it have no idea what grammar is and how to teach
>> it.
>>> What role model, or inspiration can a teacher who fumbles around
>> and
>>> is in confusion about grammar could be for students? I had a few
> of
>>> such teachers and instructors, and often I had to teach them
> myself
>>> what they needed to know in order to qualify for teaching.
>>>
>>> If I did not like grammar I would not bother to be on this list.
>> What
>>> for? To read again and again about others love and I hate? Part of
>>> the endless harangue in the forum is caused by the situation I
> have
>>> just described, people who love grammar fighting with people who
>> hate
>>> it. In the meantime, some people do the quiet and unrewarded work
>> of
>>> teaching their students Standard English in spite of the attacks
> on
>>> them and the displeasure of the grammar haters.
>>>
>>> Eduard
>>>
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>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>
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