Phil,
This topic keeps coming up. What do
you define as traditional grammar? Do you mean the scholarly tradition of
grammar study and teaching so well exemplified by Jespersen and continuing
today in scholars like Biber, Greenbaum, Huddleston, Kolln, Quirk, Pullum, etc.?
If so, I doubt if many would disagree with you. On the other hand, if you’re
talking about the descriptions and proscriptions found in the average freshman
writing handbook, I suspect you’d find a fair bit of disagreement.
So define what you mean.
Herb
From:
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006
10:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The role of English
teachers
The real problem is that there are few if any traditional ideas that
need to go. Someone should actually sit down and make a list of ideas
that need to be expunged from grammar teaching and you would see there are
actually only a few if any. The real problem is that people want to
wallow around in a sea of unaccountability where pontification and pretense
take precedence over good sense.
We should not be talking in terms of modern versus traditional grammar
as there is nearly zero difference. Instead we should speak merely of
teaching grammar and put the whole false problem behind us.
If any one disagrees, please draw up a list of tradtional notions that
should be abandonded.
Phil Bralich
-----Original Message-----
From: "Paul E. Doniger"
<[log in to unmask]>Sent: Aug 16, 2006 7:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: The role of English teachers
Peter Adams raised an interesting issue with: "In fact, I am wondering why the role of English teachers seems to always be to slow down this process and defend the traditional conventions." Is this really the role of English teachers? What do others think about this?
Personally, I don't see myself as a defender of traditional conventions at all. I suspect that many of my colleagues in the high school English classroom feel the same as I do. I rather see the English teacher in me as a promoter/fascilitator of deep thinking (and critical and creative thinking) through the disciplines of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Grammar instruction is one item in the toolbox, albeit an important one (and a too often neglected one at that). However, it's not for me so much as a teaching of convention as it is a teaching of the way language works -- as a means towards better/deeper thinking in these four disciplines.
I'd add that as a drama teacher, grammar is important in a similar way. When I ask my acting students to point up the nouns or "play to (or 'with' or 'on')" the verbs, I need first to make sure they know what these words are. My goal for them, however, is not grammatical, but theatrical -- I want them to make the language meaningful and rich, and to bring the text across clearly to the audience.
Paul D.
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