Just to clarify a point regarding ATEG members' attitudes towards traditional grammar: I think most of us would probably agree that it is the use of traditional grammar instruction methods and not the grammar itself that we take the biggest issue against. The old idea of teaching grammar (or just about anything else for that mattter) using decontectualized "drill and kill" worksheets is no longer acceptable. If we can well teach parts of speech, sentence structure, etc., using methods that help students retain and use their knowledge, then ATEG will have accomplished one of its highest goals. The purposes of the scope and sequence project include discovering and disseminating such methods.
 
I think it would be counterproductive of us to consider going back to methods that did not (or if they ever did, that no longer) work. It has been more than three quarters of a century since John Dewey wrote Education and Experience, and public education has only just begun to properly take his concept of progressive education to heart: that we must begin where the students "are" in order to be able to educate them at all (let alone well).
 
Eduard quotes David Mulroy's wonderful book, The War Against Grammar to great effect.  In it, Professor Mulroy points out that Dewey believed in mixing both the formal and the informal. He states that "the ideal approach to education is one that alternates in a rational way between progressive and traditional approaches" (63) and that "there is no intrinsic opposition between the goals of progressive education and formal instruction in grammar"  as recommended by Dewey (64). However, formal isntruction does not have to done in the traditional manner. If we insit on following traditions that have failed, then we will not achieve our goals. [Note for Eduard: I don't understand why you asked in an earlier posting, "Any idea who the author is and how his perspective and experience would help move this forum forward?" You obviously know David's book well, and you quoted from it at length just before asking the question.].
 
The reasons for ATEG's existence include our disapproval of the old NCTE stance "that the English teaching profession is opposed to formal instruction in grammar" (Mulroy 66). Our conference last week included much talk about the need for formal instruction and our skepticism regarding the "grammar in context" methods of the recent past. We exist in large measure to change NCTE's stance. And we have made progress. NCTE has published our book and is about to publish another book by one of our members on the subject of grammar teaching. Also, they have published three issues of English Journal solely devoted to grammar instruction during the last ten years -- many with articles by our membership. There is no need for either doom-saying nor hoplessness. We all need to work together to share ideas and find methods that work. To assume that this is easy, I think we would all agree, would be foolish. To employ "back to the basics" methodology would be suicidal to the cause and to the education of modern students.
 
Paul E. Doniger

----- Original Message ----
From: Eduard C. Hanganu <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 2:36:22 PM
Subject: Re: Traditional Grammar

Craig,

There is no need to get defensive here. Constructive criticism is the
need of all academic endeavors, and should be invited and appreciated
in this forum. There are some problems which need to be addressed in
order for things to move forward, because:

1.Some members of the ATEG forum have trashed traditional grammar in
books and articles repeatind the idea propagated by NCTE that
the "good, old grammar" is just a bunch of absurd prescriptions.

2.Some have advocated the mixing of contemporary linguistics with
traditional grammar to make it "better," ignoring the fact that even
Chomsky defended the teaching of traditional grammar. Here is how
David Mulroy quotes him:

"I don't see how any person can truly be called "educated' who
doesn't know the elements of sentence structure, or who doesn't
understand the nature of a relative clause, a passive construction,
and so on.Furthermore, if one is going to discuss literature,
including here what students write themselves, and to come to
understanding, and to come to understand how it is written and why,
there conceptual tools are indispensable.

For these purposes, I think traditional grammar so-called ( say, the
grammar of Jespersen) remains today a very impressive and useful
basis for such teaching. I can't see any reason for teaching
structural grammars of English, or for teaching transformational
grammar in the manner of some instructional books that I have seen."

3. Some people are very opposed to the traditional nomenclature and
defition of parts of speech and parts of sentence, and believe that
it should be totally and completely discarded, but cannot offer
anything better because no contemporary grammar has been able to
offer a better grammatical taxonomy and better definitions for the
parts of speech and sentence of the traditional grammar. Again, David
Mulroy, explains that though the nomenclature and definitions of the
traditional grammar are not perfect, they are "prototypical" and more
than sufficient for most public school and college students:

"Fries was right that traditional grammarians have not been entirely
consistent in their definitions of the parts of speech. The parts of
speech are traditionally taught to young students, and the ways in
which they have been taught reproduce the way in which classificatory
schemes are usually internalized. One starts with the prototypes: the
clearest,  most familiar examples of a category...As people grow,
they refine their criteria and in the end are capable of making more
or less scientific distinctions..."

At this time ATEG struggles with nomenclature and definitions because
there is confusion about them. Ed Vavra states:

"As long as this group refuses to make such distinctions, it will
fail. In effect, it is speaking and writing nonsense (as I understand
Hobbes to call it), since different members use the same terms to
refer to different constructions, and different terms to refer to the
same constructions. Clear definitions are first principles of
philosophy and of the natural sciences. It amazes me that this group
cannot understand that."

4. Some members have repeated again and again the myth of the "native
speaker" which is contained even in "Some Questions and Answers about
Grammar" listed by ATEG:

"All native speakers of a language have more grammar in their heads
than any grammar book will ever contain. Part of our goal as teachers
is to help students discover that knowledge."

People who still treat Pinker's theories as scientific facts need to
read Sampson's "The 'Language Instinct' Debate" and see for
themselves how much evidence there is against the notion of "language
innateness" or "Universal Grammar." They also need to read Davies'
"The Native Speaker Myth and Reality," and realize that a lot of the
students who participate in English classes are not "native speakers"
who "have more grammar in their heads that any grammar book will ever
contain," but *semilingual* individuals, that is, people who "never
achieve[d] native speaker status in any language." Davies explains:

"What semilingualism argues (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1981) is that in
certain situations, either of a multilingual character or an
impoverished one, which creates a climate of disadvantage, children
may be brought up with no fully developed linguistic systems and what
they have will be either (a)a set (two or more)of partial systems or
(b) one inadequate system."

Such discovery would help teachers and instructors to understand that
their responsibility is not to bring to the surface the innner
grammarians inside their students, but to TEACH the *semilingual*
students English as "another language" so that such students could
use their mother tongue adequately at home, in school, and at work.

Eduard



On Wed, 19 Jul 2006, Craig Hancock wrote...

>Ed,
>   It was AFTER he wrote those words that David Milroy was invited
to be
>our keynote speaker. I was delighted to meet him then and delighted
>that he was with us at our recent conference. I certainly don't want
to
>speak for David, who is perfectly capable of speaking for himself,
but
>he seems to think we are at least capable of redemeption. I am
>delighted to have among us strong voices for the value of traditional
>grammar.
>
>Craig>

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/