This is a reply to messages from long ago. I've just been trawling through
my inbox.
I am doing research into the benefits of grammar teaching at ***teacher
education level*** (different from the debate about grammar teaching and
children's literacy development, but not irrelevant).
I am NOT for "traditional" grammar. However, I am proposing that teacher
students will benefit from some kind of abstract, structural (formal) knowledge
of language. The approach being taken in our institution is generative (they
receive a yearlong linguistics course - six weeks of which focus on syntax). I
hasten to add, in light of someone's comment about 'inflicting' generative
grammar on the 'innocent', that it is the formal approach that is taken. The
students do not have to understand the Chomskyian philosphy, or even draw trees.
The idea is that it is a way of learning about the word classes and sentence
structures (of English in this case) in a way that allows the teacher students
to perform structural analysis for practical, pedagogical purposes somewhere
down the line.
I am doing empirical, data-driven research based on the course they take
(thus the treatment received).
I also take into account previous input and, perhaps more importantly, what
_kind_ of metalinguistic knowledge of grammar they already seemed to posess, and
how that changes after the course. It is quasi-experimental only because a
control group was not possible.
When I speak at seminars and conferences, or talk to people who are
practising teachers in the TESOL world in particular, my proposed approach is
often read as being traditional and opposed to the existing ethos for children's
literacy development - for some of the reasons given by the previous respondent
below Robert Einarsson's reply. I therefore receive a lot of feedback from
people who believe this type of approach to grammar goes against the 'language
in use, language in context' etc. movement and the importance of
literacy to overall cognitive, cultural and political development
(something with which I ideologically agree).
I'm hoping that my research will help show it doesn't have to be one or the
other, even if the generative approach is seen as being close to traditional
grammar by a number of educationalists. The nature of metalinguistic knowledge
in literate adults is an under-researched one. In the context of teacher
education it is surely important? Perhaps then it might be clearer how the
teachers' knowledge can be adapted to fit with research coming out of literacy
classrooms. I also agree with Jeff Glauner's point that a language to talk about
language emerges from this approach. In the UK at present, this also happens to
match the metalanguage given in government policy documents on teacher education
and primary school literacy objectives.
Siobhan Casson
University of Durham
UK
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 10:18
PM
Subject: Re: Quantitative Research
Ed lists are all good reasons (copied below) why there seems to
be
a "dearth of quantitative research" on the pro-grammar side.
However,
I was wondering if another reason might be that the ethos
of traditional
grammar, and traditionalism in general, simply do not
match with the ethos
of quantitative research. Isn't the drive toward
quantitative
research in the classroom part of the whole anti-
tradition movement?
It seems to me that people who are
interested in traditional grammar would
have more scholarly
motivations, less scientific; more rationalist world
views, less
empirical. The ethos of classroom experimentation does
not fit
with the ethos of grammar teaching. This would also imply
that
those who DO use quantitaive research would be predisposed
against
grammar. Also, I heard someone in the social sciences
talk about a
new movement toward QUALITATIVE research,
instead of quantitative, in the
softer sciences. Grammar teaching
might be one of the softer
sciences.
>on the question of quantitative research. There has been
very
> little done recently, for a number of reasons:
>
>
1.) Cost. Collecting and analyzing samples (oral or written) is
>
time-consuming and expensive.
>
> 2) Legal issues -- getting
permission to use (analyze) samples of
> writing from an entire class is
not as easy as it was 30 years ago.
>
> 3.) Deciding what
"grammar" is to be studied. (Someone already raised
> this
question, but it is complex, especially since, even in this group,
>
there is little agreement on the definition of grammar. Are we talking
>
usage, or syntax?)
>
> 4) Samples -- how will samples be chosen?
How will we know that the
> students have, or have not, had instruction
in precisely those
> constructions that are to be analyzed during the
preceding 6 months?)
>
> 5) Are the samples (raw data) available
for inspection. As I suggested in
> my essay on the definition of the
T-unit, in the previous, famous
> research, the researchers all defined
the T-unit differently. Unless we
> can see the raw data, the studies
are highly suspect. (See:
> http://www2.pct.edu/courses/evavra/ED498/Essay009_Def_TUnit.htm)
>
>
Note too that the recent discussion (and different opinions) on how
>
language is "mastered" in the first place also affects any
quantitative
> research. One of the reasons that O'Hare's study is
flawed is that he used
> the previous work of Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban
which showed that
> subordinate clauses naturally blossom between
seventh and ninth grade.
> Probably for that reason, he chose seventh
graders to study. But, once one
> sees what is going on, his doing so
created a "sling-shot" effect which
> invalidates any application of his
research to anything other than seventh
> graders. (And it may not be
valid for them either.)
>
> I suggest that any
quantitative study of the effectiveness of any
> approach to teaching
grammar will be flawed until we get a better
> understanding of the
natural development of what Hunt called "syntactic
> maturity." And we
are a long way from that because we can't even agree on
> how to define
basic terms. Ed
V.
>
-----------------------------------------------------
Sincerely,
Robert Einarsson
please visit me at
www.artsci.gmcc.ab.ca/people/einarssonb
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