At 03:46 PM 12/12/2008, richard betting wrote: . . . >I would bet that the majority of middle school/high school English >teachers would not be able to define and explain the terms that have >been discussed, to say nothing of doing so from the perspective of >more than one grammatical approach. That is not to criticize the >teachers themselves so much as to ask about the educational process >shat enabled them to get where they are without an adequate knowledge >of the English language that they spend so much time teaching. In >order to have an ADEQUATE (minimal) background in English, what >courses should/must all language arts teachers have? Could we agree on >the required courses? Do current textbooks (for teachers) meet the >content requirement we might create? Is anyone still working on scope >and sequence? . . . DD: Very salient questions and comment. I teach Latin. [ Don't get caught in the Latin lists' cross fire on Grammar, Translating, Understanding, reading in Latin, Speaking, language learning in general, or whatever*.] I suspect that the pre college level English teachers are not teaching or talking much about grammar. The students I get learn the parts of speech (et al.) from me, using Dr. John Traupman's, "Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency," mostly. What they do in English class, I wot not. Well, it appears to have naught to do with formal definitions or rules of grammar. Being a Nosey Parker, I have very discretely probed. "Parse" is an unknown word. I sort of gather from comments on this list that there are still some English Grammarian troglodytes that care. Consensus on texts we probably could have. Would they have a ghost of a chance of being adopted for teacher certification courses? That I misdoubt. Onward comrades, it is a glorious battle we wage. "Thump! Thump! Thump!" Do I hear the classic cue to the audience of impending doom? *Well the ones on Graffitti are fun. 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/