one would have to ask whether mychildren would suffer in the real world of power, authority,inequality, and coercion if they were not to acquire relevant featuresof the dominant culture. Surely this consideration would have to begiven weight, if the welfare of my children were to be taken intoaccount.
Another forwarded message from Johanna. Happy to be of service.Craig---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: Scope and Sequence & Trad. grammar]Date: Thu, July 20, 2006 11:38 pm"Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar"--------------------------------------------------------------------------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 Developmentand Reading" - Noam Chomsky interviewed by Lillian R. Putnam. ReadingInstruction Journal, Fall 1987"QUESTION: Reading teachers are concerned with language acquisitionsince oral language provides a basis for reading. In your writing, youstate that at birth, children are genetically programmed to acquirelanguage and that it is innate. Is, then, the heavy emphasis placed onlanguage development by nursery schools and kindergartens justified?CHOMSKY: There is little doubt that the basic structure of language andthe principles that determine the form and interpretation of sentencesin any human language are in large part innate. But it does not followthat emphasis on language development is misplaced. If a child isplaced in an impoverished environment, innate abilities simply will notdevelop, mature, and flourish. To take an extreme case, a child whowears a cast on its legs for too long will never learn to walk, and achild deprived of appropriate nutrition may undergo puberty only aftera long delay, or never, though there is no doubt that walking andsexual maturation are innately determined biological properties.Similarly, a child brought up in an institution may have ampleexperience and nutrition, but still may not develop normally, eitherphysically or mentally, if normal human interaction is lacking.It is a traditional insight that teaching is not like filling a cupwith water, but more like enabling a flower to grow in its own way; butit will not grow and flourish without proper care. Languagedevelopment, like all human development, will be heavily determined bythe nature of the environment, and may be severely limited unless theenvironment is appropriate. A stimulating environment is required toenable natural curiosity, intelligence, and creativity to develop, andto enable our biological capacities to unfold. The fact that the courseof development is largely internally determined does not mean that itwill proceed without care, stimulation, and opportunity.QUESTION: We realize that linguistics is the scientific study oflanguage, and not a recipe for language instruction. If teachers inprimary grades were familiar with your work, what kinds of changes oremphases might they make in reading instruction? What generalsuggestions 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 thesciences, and what is not. As a linguist, I have no particularqualifications or knowledge that enables or entitles me to prescribemethods of language instruction. As a person, I have my own ideas onthe topic, based on my own experience (in part, as a teacher oflanguage to children), introspection, and personal judgment, but theseshould not be confused with some kind of professional expertise,presented from on high. My own feeling, for what it is worth, is thatat any level, from nursery to graduate school, teaching is largely amatter of encouraging natural development. The best "method" ofteaching is to make it clear that the subject is worth learning, and toallow the child's -- or adult's -- natural curiosity and interest intruth and understanding to mature and develop. That is about 90% of theproblem, if not more. Methods of instruction may influence the residue.QUESTION: Many of our early beliefs about the nature of language ofdisadvantaged children have been disproven by research, for example,that Black English is deficient or inferior; or that it fails toprovide an adequate basis for abstract thinking. Speakers of BlackEnglish want their children to learn Standard English. Is this bestdone by direct instruction or by osmosis?CHOMSKY: Anyone who was familiar with language took for granted, orshould have taken for granted, that so-called Black English is simply alanguage on a par with my urban Philadelphia dialect of English, theEnglish of High Table at Oxford, Japanese, Greek, etc. If race, class,and other power relations were to change, Black English might emerge asthe standard language and what I speak would be regarded as defective.None of this has anything to do with the nature of languages. The ideathat Black English, or my urban dialect, or any other language fails toprovide an adequate basis for abstract thinking is utterly implausible,and I think one should be extremely skeptical about claims to thecontrary. Typically, they are based on gross misunderstanding.Questions nevertheless arise about what should be taught in theschools. If speakers of Black English came to dominate and controlAmerican society, so that my speech would be regarded as nonstandardand defective, then it might be argued that my children should betaught the language of the dominant culture, Black English, not theparticular variety of English that I speak. The decision would not bebased on characteristics of the language, or on some ludicrous beliefsabout how certain languages stand in the way of abstract thought, butrather on other considerations. Thus one would have to ask whether mychildren would suffer in the real world of power, authority,inequality, and coercion if they were not to acquire relevant featuresof the dominant culture. Surely this consideration would have to begiven weight, if the welfare of my children were to be taken intoaccount.On the other hand, if my children were to be instructed in what amountsto a foreign language, their intellectual development might beinhibited; there is little doubt, for example, that it would be harderfor them to learn to read if the language of instruction were BlackEnglish, which is not the language that they acquired in theirpreschool environment. The same questions would arise if I had moved toItaly when my children were young. Exactly how these factors should bebalanced is not a simple question, and there is no reason to believethat there is any uniform answer to them; too many factors vary.My own personal judgment, for what it is worth, is that speakers of alanguage that is not that of groups that dominate some society shouldprobably be taught in their own languages at least at the very earlystages, until basic skills are acquired, and should be taught in thedominant language at later stages, so that they can enter the societywithout suffering disadvantages that are rooted in the prevailingpower, privilege, and domination. One might hope to modify thesefeatures of the dominant society, but that is another question.Children have to be helped to function in the world that exists, whichdoes not mean, of course, that they -- or others -- should not try tochange it to a better world."I am not presuming to express any firm judgments or to offer generalproposals. There are a great many factors to consider, and the answerswill surely not be the same for every person or every circumstance. Wehave to do here not with problems of language, but of the society atlarge, and they have to be confronted in these terms.To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/