Hi Peter,
   I have had similar frustrations at times, knowing that if I could work with a certain group of students on basic language concepts and approaches to thinking about language BEFORE we began the writing course content (set forth mostly by the school), I could actually use many of the intuitive and structural "tricks" much more effectively. I think it is telling of our give-me-an-answer methods (not you in particular, just in general) that, in many cases, asking our students to consider their natural inclination as language users is such a foreign concept that the students flounder or run into so many mental blocks. 
    I suppose that some might say that students like your, who don't appear to have strong language intuitions to fall back on, are semilingual or not native in any language at all. I certainly believe that would be a minority opinion. I, personally don't put any stock into such notions. Instead, I would think about other factors that may be getting in the way. In my own (admittedly, limited) experience, such intuitive gaps are the result of language variation. I don't expect, for example, a class of students who speak African American English as their home/native variety to necessarily have the same intuitions about language structure as me (a lesson learned the hard way). If I'm lucky enough to have a class full of students fluent in the grammatical nuances of Southern American English, then I can often predict and understand some of the intuitive gaps that lead them away from a more standard form.
   Now, I have no idea what kind of student composition you have, but there may be some variety issues there. I've used many of Martha Kolln's intuitive techniques with great success, but there have been times (like with the intuition for -s endings) where the technique failed because the students didn't intuit what I expected them to. Why? because that form isn't so natural in their mental grammars.
   I say all this just to suggest that if language variety issues are present, I often find it to everyone's benefit to tackle them head-on. Grammar logs or direct discussion work well -- pointing out what I say versus what you say versus what the prescribed standard is. If the intuition is not there, maybe we can help them master the idea more explicitly. Just a thought (I'm sure there a myriad of factors at play in your classroom). I sure do sympathize with your feelings of limitation timewise. This is why I want to see a more standard sequencing of grammar instruction in our schools!
    Jed
Peter Adams <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I am really enjoying this conversation (well, not the mean-spirited parts, but most of it).  I love Martha's and Rei Noguchi's ideas of helping students realize the intuitive knowledge they have.  Or as Martha puts it "Intuitive knowledge of grammar should be used--it can be enormously effective.  And it helps students recognize that they don't come to grammar class with a blank slate to be filled by new information.  It is truly empowering for students to recognize that in studying grammar they are learning in a conscious way the rules that they have been following subconsciously all their lives."

But I remain a little skeptical.  I should say that I teach at a community college and that I teach lots of sections of developmental writing.  I have been struggling for more than thirty years to help my very motivated and, often, quite intelligent students master the conventions of standard written English.  I wrote a few days to ask whether reducing error was a goal of ATEG, and several of you responded in that indeed it is.  Several even took the time to explain that because so much emphasis has been placed on reducing error in the past that members of this group tend to talk more about other goals like "All students should have explicit knowledge about language." (as Craig recently pointed outA)  I surely agree that this is an excellent goal, and perhaps, if I were working on a "scope and sequence" for grades K through 12, I would want to build that in to that extended program of instruction.  But I have my students for 14 weeks.  And what seems more critical and more reasonable it to help them reduce the number of seriously stigmatizing errors in their writing. 

So, as someone recently wrote, I minimize the amount of grammar terminology I teach and then try to find a way to teach it that is works for them.  Currently, I really teach only four function terms: verb, subject, sentence, and independent clause.  These allow them to master most of the major rules of punctuation, to avoid or revise fragments, run-ons, and comma splices, and to revise for subject-verb agreement.  I provide a little more in the area of apostrophes and pronoun reference and agreement . . . and that's about it. 

I would love for my students to be able to "identify the prepositional phrases in [a} passage and tell what word groups they modify and whether they are adjectival or adverbial" as Craig suggests.  However, that skill seems so far removed from what they need to survive in college and in the workplace, that I wouldn't dream of trying to squeeze it in to my 14 weeks with them.

Martha's example illustrates the problem I have with this approach.  She says "simply substitute a pronoun for the subject of 'Simply believing in the students give(s) them the necessary confidence to succeed.'"  But my students have great difficulty identifying what the subject is in a sentence like that, so "simply substituting a pronoun" for the subject is not very helpful. 

Similarly, "A verb is a word that has both an -s and an -ing ending--or simply a word that you can signal with "might" or "could" is just not going to help my students.  "Signal" is not a concept they are familiar with.  And -s endings are a source of considerable confusion for my students.  They are not at all sure what words can and cannot take -s endings.

Everyone is probably familiar with the accusation that traditional definitions of terms are COIK--Clear Only If Known.  That is a problem I (and many of you) have recognized for years.  However, I fear the definitions and the "intuitive" tests for various word classes are equally COIK for the students I teach. 


Peter Adams
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John (Jed) E. Dews-Alexander
Instructor, Undergraduate Linguistics
MA-TESOL/Applied Linguistics Program
Educator, Secondary English Language Arts
English Department, 208 Rowand-Johnson Hall (Office)
University of Alabama
 

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