Jean: The use of articles, whether for native students or for international students, is a notoriously difficult problem because most students do not understand the article role in definiteness and deixis. I would leave such concepts for the most advanced students - probably those who are doing majors in language and linguistics. Eduard On Mon, 21 Aug 2006, Jean Waldman wrote... >Eduard, I absolutely agree. A noun is a car, a doll, a pencil, a cloud, a >chair. > >But these are not names of things. Do we need to give a theoretical >definition to first graders? If we do, we should find something better than >A noun is the name of a person, place or thing. The student has to learn >this by rote because it doesn't mean anything. > > > >First graders have perfectly good brains. If they couldn't make >generalizations and apply them, they would not know how to speak at all. It >is the teachers who think the stuff they had to memorize as children is >simple. It is amazing how much we believe when the people around us tell >it, and when they give examples we make the connection, even though it >defies logic. > > > >A proper noun is the name of a person, place, or thing. Ellen and Barbara >and Bob are names. When we get theoretical we can talk about naming words, >and talk about proper nouns, but not common nouns. > > > >Can we find a better way to talk about common nouns, one that will not leave >the students confused when they try to apply it in new situations? > > > >This definition leads to problems when the students are learning more >sophisticated uses of language. The same system that talks about persons, >places, and things also talks about words called articles, which are only >three, a, an, and the. > >We need to be able to deal with a class of words that tell which car, or >doll, or pencil we want the child to bring to us. These words can be >articles. They can also be possessives, or demonstratives, or each, every, >which, what, or any. These are the referential determiners, and usually >only one of these can be used before a noun. There is another group of >determiners, quantifying determiners, that can be used alone or with >referential determiners to tell about the noun. > > > >I am not advocating teaching this to first grade students. It can be very >important for international students who ask: Sometimes you use a or an and >sometimes you use the, and sometimes you don't use anything at all. How can >we tell which one to use when? > > > >My argument is that if we don't want grammar to be confusing, we should not >give confusing definitions. A noun is the name of a person, place, or >thing. may be simple, but it does not provide clarity. In fact, this >definition is confusing. > > > >Maybe we could say that a noun is a word that tells something about a >person, place, or thing. Then later we can talk about groups and words that >help us find which one in the group. > > > >Maybe we can just provide examples. > >However, it's good to avoid giving lists of isolated words. Paul's example >of the use of the word chair as a verb is one example of the reason this >system is confusing. > > > >It would be useful to help the students learn to identify the nouns in >sentences, and in the process they can discover a lot about nouns. > > > >We also need to have teachers who have dealt with various relevant theories >so they can help lead the students to understanding, instead of boring the >students with rote recitations. > > > >Whatever we do, let's not leave the students thinking grammar is the word >that comes before drills, or that grammar doesn't make any sense because the >definitions are irrelevant. > > > >Jean > > > >Jean Waldman, retired lecturer > >University of Maryland > >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/ 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/