One trend I've noticed among my students is that those who have been 
subjected to significant explicit traditional grammar in their K-12 
education are much quicker to assimilate material than those who have 
had little or no explicit grammatical instruction.

The grammatical content I teach is based on Huddleston & Pullum, so I 
have a certain amount of deprogramming to do with those students steeped 
in traditional assumptions, but inevitably I get more sophisticated, 
thorough, and accurate analysis from them in their end-of-the-semester 
projects than from those for whom my course is the first exposure to 
grammar.

So I entirely agree that length of study is a key factor. And even 
though we share the same skepticism anent the content of traditional 
grammar books, exposure to it does seem to have a positive effect when 
someone comes along later to show them how to put all the grammar to use 
in a context that is more than just error correction.

Karl Hagen
Department of English
Mount St. Mary's College

Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Bill McCleary writes "students can't seem
> to learn enough grammar to be able to apply it".
>
> I'm wondering why people believe this ... is it a complaint about 
> things as they are now, or a statement of general truth? I suspect the 
> former ... several of us on the list have stated a few times that one 
> of our reasons for supporting a grammar curriculum that is good, 
> thorough and lasts through all or most years of schooling is that such 
> a curriculum is the most likely kind to make grammar so familiar to 
> students that they _can_ apply it.
>
> It's unrealistic to expect students to become fluent with grammar 
> through training only in a year or two of high school and/or a 
> semester or two in college--especially if they are learning grammar 
> through the traditional method, which has a lot of flaws.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
> • E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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