In a message dated 7/31/06 1:51:46 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:
The problem with trying to design materials to get a student from zero to proficiency with standard English in fourteen weeks is that, in practical terms, it can’t be done. No one in math would expect a student to go from basic addition to algebra in fourteen weeks; you have to build a knowledge base for each step. The problem is not that teachers can’t lead students to full proficiency in one semester – it’s that school systems sometimes really expect this, or that a teacher faced with students who are far short of being able to perform according to a criterion that has to be met by the end of the semester (because whoever is in charge of curriculum wrote that criterion but didn’t work on the ones for preceding grades) feels more responsibility than an outside observer would weigh him/her down with.
Luckily, Bill, we are not starting at zero. As the ATEG group points out, students have a great deal of unconscious knowledge about language, which I try to make use of . . . and even some conscious knowledge. And given that these students, average age 28 at my school, have made it through a school system that did not provide the scope and sequence ATEG is working on, our choices would seem to be the following:
1) send them back for 12 years of education in language, which in reality wouldn't take 12 years but would take a lot more than 14 weeks.
2) write them off as a generation that just didn't go to school at the right time.
3) try to develop a brief grammar, what I have been calling a "writer's grammar, and through improved definitions of a short list of terms, some editing exercises, and lots of writing and revision of that writing, to improve their ability to edit their writing for the most common and most stigmatizing errors.
Obviously, I'm opting for #3. Although I'd be the first to admit that complete competence may be an unrealistic goal, I am seeing considerable improvement in my students' ability to reduce error in their writing.
And perhaps my definition of proficiency is considerably lower than yours. You point out the difficulty of explaining who/whom to someone who has no idea of what a subject or object is. However, who/whom is a distinction I don't try to teach in my developmental writing classes. My thinking is that plenty of people who are considered adequate writers still have trouble with who/whom. So my "writer's grammar," perhaps "survival grammar" would be a better term, in its current incarnation, addresses subject-verb agreement, pronoun reference and agreement, the major punctuation problems like fragments, run-ons, and comma splices, and apostrophes, as well as a good dose of usage issues. That's it. Never do all my students develop proficiency in all these topics, but about half of them do. I wish I could do better, but I am proud of the half that succeed. And each semester I hope to improve that percentage.
As an example, think of trying to explain the usage of ‘whom’ in formal English to (a) a student who , and (b) one who already knows (and is comfortable with) those terms. In the first case, you’re in for a long (and probably pointless) afternoon of trying to get the point across. In the second case, you don’t really have to spend much time explaining anything; you just have to emphasize the need for care when approaching sentences with multiple clause embedding, etc.
And I look forward to the day in the future when my job is a whole lot easier because the K-12 school system, with the help of ATEG, produces students with a solid understanding of English grammar.
Peter Adams
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