"Hear, hear!" to both Elizabeth and Dick. I lurk to learn. Peace, David BrownESL/EFL teacherLong Beach, CAUSA  --- On Sun 07/30, =?windows-1252?Q?Elizabeth__Ward?= < [log in to unmask] > wrote:From: =?windows-1252?Q?Elizabeth__Ward?= [mailto: [log in to unmask]]To: [log in to unmask]: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:12:58 -0400Subject: Scope and SequenceDear ATEG:You know so much about language that you seem to stand in the midst of a forest of theories, each of you defending a particular tree, each determined to prove that chosen tree is the right or the best one. Proving the right or best of anything is hopeless; but you must know that already. So why have you let yourselves get so stuck on basic terminology? Please take time to walk beyond the trees out into the sunshine, turn around, and look at the whole forest. For whom are you writing your Scope and Sequence? Experts like yourselves or teachers, especially in the upper grades, who need a set of terms–-a 
metalanguage, if you will-- to use in their classrooms? Terms they can be sure will be recognized as acceptable. Terms that won’t get them into altercations with their supervisors or principals. Terms their students can carry from one classroom or one school building to another and still find themselves in familiar territory. What is needed is for you to do for linguistics what arithmetic does for higher math. Don’t write one “definitive” S&S; write several, beginning with Level One–what students must learn to produce correct standard written English. Once they understand something structure and usage, they can go on to your more advanced S&S’s in which you may describe the uncertainties and ambiguities of language. Sometimes this group puts down correctness as an unimportant goal. Itis only unimportant when one can already write flawless standard English. Correctness must be a primary concern for teachers who don’t want their students handicapped in the Information 
Age. The rest of the world is busy mastering standard English. It would be sad if our students would someday have to keep their jobs by outsourcing their own language. Should tomorrow’s leaders have to send their paperwork to somewhere like India to be “translated” into acceptable copy, that would be sad. Of course the basic S&S wouldn’t have to be just boring rules and exercises. There are so many wonderful and exciting things about language that most kids are totally unaware of. Besides some of the suggestions in Grammar Alive, Martha Kolln’s chapter on intonation might be a great place to start. Show kids how music and writing are connected, and you will grab a lot of them for life. Or show them how to write so they can slow down or speed up their readers. Fun stuff like that.Dear ATEG, please stop arguing and start teaching.Thank you.Elizabeth WardTo join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface 
at:http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.htmland select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

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