Dear Caroline,
What do you mean by use "grammatical English"?
That is what kinds of things are they saying and hearing that you diagnose as not using grammatical English?

regards,

rebecca

Automatic digest processor wrote:

Subject: Re: Something is haunting me.
Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 18:19:52 GMT
From: "<Caroline Chesebrough>" <[log in to unmask]>
  David,
  As a fifth grade teacher I think that it is more that kids see no reason
to learn grammar. Most people they know, and those they hear on tv and in
films, do not use grammatical English so the kids see no reason they should
be expected to learn.

  Caroline

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Rebecca S. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Department of English
1 University Place
Christopher Newport University
Newport News, VA 23606-2998

Telephone: 757-598-8891
Fax: 757-594-8870

Rebecca S. Wheeler is Editor of Syntax in the Schools, the quarterly journal of the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG), an assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). www.ateg.org.

Research Interests:
* dialects and language varieties in the schools,
* reducing the achievement gap between inner city minority children and middle class children,
* discovery learning of grammar in the classroom

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