Ed Vavra writes in his post,

"Give any class of college Freshmen a short paragraph and ask them to
identify the prepositional phrases, subjects, and verbs. Many of them,
if  not most, will not identify "is" or "were" as verbs. How then, can
they really understand more advanced linguistic questions?"

This is exactly the problem that I had in mind when I said that students
need continuous grammar instruction through most of their school years.
If that were happening, those college freshman would not have any
trouble with passive voice.

Of course those years of instruction have to follow a sensible scope and
sequence that is in accord with children's cognitive development. If
this happens, later grammar does not have to be kept very simple,
especially in college. Would people accept the idea of stopping at
arithmetic, because it's simpler, and not going on to mathematics? Stop
at long division and forget algebra and geometry because there are too
many terms and too many formulae?

Of course, this is not where we are now. That's why we have all these
people working on fixing the situation. Under the current circumstances,
programs which try to make grammar accessible with the minimum of
obstacles are a great idea. But we're never going to get the whole job
done with a one-semester college course or a one-year high school course.
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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