Another forwarded message from Johanna. Happy to be of service. Craig-- -------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Scope and Sequence & Trad. grammar] From: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, July 20, 2006 11:38 pm To: "New Public Grammar public grammar" <[log in to unmask]> "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]> Cc: "Johanna Rubba" <[log in to unmask]> "Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar" <[log in to unmask]> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, Craig, Sorry to bother you again. I wonder if you would post this for me. Apologies for the length. Chomsky on grammar teaching, 1987. From "Language, Language Development and Reading" - Noam Chomsky interviewed by Lillian R. Putnam. Reading Instruction Journal, Fall 1987 "QUESTION: Reading teachers are concerned with language acquisition since oral language provides a basis for reading. In your writing, you state that at birth, children are genetically programmed to acquire language and that it is innate. Is, then, the heavy emphasis placed on language development by nursery schools and kindergartens justified? CHOMSKY: There is little doubt that the basic structure of language and the principles that determine the form and interpretation of sentences in any human language are in large part innate. But it does not follow that emphasis on language development is misplaced. If a child is placed in an impoverished environment, innate abilities simply will not develop, mature, and flourish. To take an extreme case, a child who wears a cast on its legs for too long will never learn to walk, and a child deprived of appropriate nutrition may undergo puberty only after a long delay, or never, though there is no doubt that walking and sexual maturation are innately determined biological properties. Similarly, a child brought up in an institution may have ample experience and nutrition, but still may not develop normally, either physically or mentally, if normal human interaction is lacking. It is a traditional insight that teaching is not like filling a cup with water, but more like enabling a flower to grow in its own way; but it will not grow and flourish without proper care. Language development, like all human development, will be heavily determined by the nature of the environment, and may be severely limited unless the environment is appropriate. A stimulating environment is required to enable natural curiosity, intelligence, and creativity to develop, and to enable our biological capacities to unfold. The fact that the course of development is largely internally determined does not mean that it will proceed without care, stimulation, and opportunity. QUESTION: We realize that linguistics is the scientific study of language, and not a recipe for language instruction. If teachers in primary grades were familiar with your work, what kinds of changes or emphases might they make in reading instruction? What general suggestions would help them? CHOMSKY: I'm hesitant even to suggest an answer to this question. Practitioners have to decide for themselves what is useful in the sciences, and what is not. As a linguist, I have no particular qualifications or knowledge that enables or entitles me to prescribe methods of language instruction. As a person, I have my own ideas on the topic, based on my own experience (in part, as a teacher of language to children), introspection, and personal judgment, but these should not be confused with some kind of professional expertise, presented from on high. My own feeling, for what it is worth, is that at any level, from nursery to graduate school, teaching is largely a matter of encouraging natural development. The best "method" of teaching is to make it clear that the subject is worth learning, and to allow the child's -- or adult's -- natural curiosity and interest in truth and understanding to mature and develop. That is about 90% of the problem, if not more. Methods of instruction may influence the residue. QUESTION: Many of our early beliefs about the nature of language of disadvantaged children have been disproven by research, for example, that Black English is deficient or inferior; or that it fails to provide an adequate basis for abstract thinking. Speakers of Black English want their children to learn Standard English. Is this best done by direct instruction or by osmosis? CHOMSKY: Anyone who was familiar with language took for granted, or should have taken for granted, that so-called Black English is simply a language on a par with my urban Philadelphia dialect of English, the English of High Table at Oxford, Japanese, Greek, etc. If race, class, and other power relations were to change, Black English might emerge as the standard language and what I speak would be regarded as defective. None of this has anything to do with the nature of languages. The idea that Black English, or my urban dialect, or any other language fails to provide an adequate basis for abstract thinking is utterly implausible, and I think one should be extremely skeptical about claims to the contrary. Typically, they are based on gross misunderstanding. Questions nevertheless arise about what should be taught in the schools. If speakers of Black English came to dominate and control American society, so that my speech would be regarded as nonstandard and defective, then it might be argued that my children should be taught the language of the dominant culture, Black English, not the particular variety of English that I speak. The decision would not be based on characteristics of the language, or on some ludicrous beliefs about how certain languages stand in the way of abstract thought, but rather on other considerations. Thus one would have to ask whether my children would suffer in the real world of power, authority, inequality, and coercion if they were not to acquire relevant features of the dominant culture. Surely this consideration would have to be given weight, if the welfare of my children were to be taken into account. On the other hand, if my children were to be instructed in what amounts to a foreign language, their intellectual development might be inhibited; there is little doubt, for example, that it would be harder for them to learn to read if the language of instruction were Black English, which is not the language that they acquired in their preschool environment. The same questions would arise if I had moved to Italy when my children were young. Exactly how these factors should be balanced is not a simple question, and there is no reason to believe that there is any uniform answer to them; too many factors vary. My own personal judgment, for what it is worth, is that speakers of a language that is not that of groups that dominate some society should probably be taught in their own languages at least at the very early stages, until basic skills are acquired, and should be taught in the dominant language at later stages, so that they can enter the society without suffering disadvantages that are rooted in the prevailing power, privilege, and domination. One might hope to modify these features of the dominant society, but that is another question. Children have to be helped to function in the world that exists, which does not mean, of course, that they -- or others -- should not try to change it to a better world." I am not presuming to express any firm judgments or to offer general proposals. There are a great many factors to consider, and the answers will surely not be the same for every person or every circumstance. We have to do here not with problems of language, but of the society at large, and they have to be confronted in these terms. 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/