Why does 'innate knowledge' persist? Chomsky himself never did deliver on it. (Remember the Putnam and Goodman arguments?) Perhaps what we mean, speaking as pedagogues, when we talk of children coming to us `hardwired' with grammar, is that once articulate, children have an estimable ability to perform linguistically. But `performance' is not the same as `competence'. For instance, the child who says `Where are yous going?' to a group is not competent in the way that the child who says `Where are you going?' is competent. The difference between the two children's linguistic performance is explainable in terms of grammar: though both are performance capable, one is competent either as a matter of luck (he had good exemplars for his copyist behaviour when he learned to speak) or as a consequence of his instruction in grammar. (Instruction in grammar will certainly help the child who is hardwired to say `Where are yous going?) Sophie ----- Original Message ----- From: Herb Stahlke <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 12:41 PM Subject: Re: Is direct grammar instruction needed in grade school? Johanna makes the crucial point that grammar needs to be a part of any liberal education, a point I make as regularly and forcefully as I can in my classes, but to apparently little effect. The lock that popular folk linguistics and its perceptions of prescriptive grammar has on K-12 education is stunningly powerful. We'll get nowhere with this issue until we can address that popular position. I must disagree with Johanna on one point. It has never been established, except apparently by default that "Children DO come hardwired with some kind of knowledge of general language structure." This is still contested territory, as Geoffrey Sampson's Educating Eve demonstrated. I don't know that Sampson's right either, but let's recognize a belief for what it is. Herb Stahlke <<< [log in to unmask] 8/15 5:34p >>> An important correction to Geoff Layton's posting ... children do NOT come " 'hardwired' with the basic grammar, syntax, and usage rules of their native language." 'Hardwired' means 'genetically built into the brain', 'present as knowledge at birth'. No child is born with innate knowledge of French or Swahili. Children DO come hardwired with some kind of knowledge of general language structure, but not with the rules for any particular language. I've noticed a trend among numerous colleagues recently to confuse the concept of 'innateness' (true, inborn hard-wiredness) with the subconscious knowledge _acquired_ during the child's early years, birth to school age. Acquired subconscious knowledge is not innate. This is an extremely important distinction and we shouldn't muddy it. This is not intended to diminish the importance or strength of children's acquired subconscious knowledge of their native language. It is present, it is strong, and it is very useful in grammar teaching, although it is not clear to me that all children are ready to understand talk about language in the early grades. Since children use language for communication, they tend to focus on the meaning of a message rather than its form. I think different children reach readiness for metalinguistic talk at different ages. I worked informally for a few hours with a middle school class on this, and found that the children differed widely in how well they were able to grasp what was going on (I was having them use tests like 'the ____' or 'we will ____' to discover which words in a given list were nouns vs. verbs). I think it is very important for children to learn grammar terms and how to analyze sentences and texts. I believe this is crucial for their later years, when they need to be able to talk about language with their writing teachers, and understand usage rules when editing their own and others' output. I also think that, given how central language is to human interaction, it is important for children to understand how it functions, just as it is important for them to understand how their bodies or their societies function. But I don't know whether such instruction needs to begin in grades 1, 2, or 3. We have insufficient research on this subject. I do believe it can productively begin in grade 4 or 5, and that that is not too late, especially if children have been doing generous amounts of reading and writing in grades 1-3. Given all this, you need to pay attention to your local context. Does your school district have learning standards that include grammar terms and sentence analysis? Do you give standardized tests that test this kind of knowledge? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, it is clear that the children will need instruction (although there is no guarantee it will be successful--this points more to the inadequacy of the standards and the tests than to the inadequacy of instruction. It's useless to require kids to learn something they're not ready for). I would like to know more about the background and specialization of your consultant. How this person understands language and how language is learned is extremely important to their ability to pronounce on your programs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Associate 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. 756-2596 * E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/