Dear All
 
I am an English teacher and grammarian, but I am interested in linguistics.  I believe that anything I can learn about the English language (or other languages, for that matter) informs my teaching. I teach grammar to pre-service teachers. They will often ask "Why do I need to know this stuff? I'll never use it."  I tell them that the more they know about the language, the better they will be able to help their students.  They don't have to teach their students about object complements, maybe, but they should know what they are. This is especially true since most of them will be teaching English language learners in elementary school. These children deserve knowledgeable teachers who are willing to continue learning themselves.
 
I would be saddened if this list were split. I want to hear from all sides, and I will sift through for material I can use or even just think about.  Plus, I am interested the history of the English language. Knowing how structures developed can definitely give one a better understanding of the language.
 
Janet

________________________________

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Ann V. Fetterman
Sent: Fri 8/6/2010 2:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Teaching English Grammar


Dear All - 
    I have been a member of ATEG and the listserve for over a year now and have found the wide-ranging discussions fascinating and educational.  I teach composition at the college level and do not consider myself a linguist by any means; however, I love the peak into the issues that this listserve allows me.   Some of the topics have made me rethink how I communicate the importance of grammar to my students: what a difference these "little points" of grammar and usage can make to the audience. So, I say... discuss on! If someone isn't interested in the topic, that delete key is right there. But you never know what you don't know until someone else brings it up. 
         --looking forward to seeing many of you in September at BYU.      -- Ann Fetterman, Penn State York

On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 04:51 PM, "Paul E. Doniger" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


	
	Bravo John!
	 
	Let's hear from everyone who has something to say on the issues that interest us all.  Linguists, K-12 teachers, everyone is invited to participate.  If there is a specific posting that is not of interest to you, there is always the delete.  Let's not limit the discussion.
	 
	We speak both linguist and grammarian here!
	 
	Paul
	 
	"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128). 


	
________________________________

	From: John Dews-Alexander <[log in to unmask]>
	To: [log in to unmask]
	Sent: Fri, August 6, 2010 4:30:26 PM
	Subject: Re: Teaching English Grammar
	
	Just for the sake of clarification, ATEG is an assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English. As such, our purposes are documented in NCTE's records:
	
	The purposes of this assembly are to improve the teaching of grammar at all levels, from elementary school through college; to promote communication and cooperation among teachers, researchers, administrators, and others interested in the teaching of grammar; to provide an open forum in which advocates of all grammar theories, representing the broad spectrum of views of grammar and its teaching, can interact.
	
	This statement of purpose casts a wide net, and it is unlikely to be narrowed in the future. 
	
	Also, it should be noted that this listserv is not ATEG. It is merely a communications forum for members of ATEG and the general public. Not all ATEG members or officers participate on this listserv. 
	
	John
	
	
	On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 3:07 PM, Brad Johnston <[log in to unmask] <https://webmail.heritage.edu/Exchange/Castilleja_j/Drafts/RE:%20Teaching%20English%20Grammar.EML?Cmd=replyall&Create=0#> > wrote:
	

		Julie and other grammar teachers,
		 
		What Herb wrote below is exactly why I suggested, and still suggest, that linguists get off this grammar listserv and go wherever it is that people who are interested in that sort of thing will be interested.
		 
		What is written below has nothing to do with what grammar teachers are faced with in the teaching of grammar, which is what the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar is supposed to be about. Plagues of the 14th century have nothing to do with Teaching English grammar, but the linguists who dominate this listserv don't seem to see it.
		 
		Scott Catledge [log in to unmask] <https://webmail.heritage.edu/Exchange/Castilleja_j/Drafts/RE:%20Teaching%20English%20Grammar.EML?Cmd=replyall&Create=0#>  wrote: The domain of grammar belongs to the English teacher -- not the linguist, who often uses a language understood by only the initiated. 
		 
		And I wrote in reply: It is my growing conviction that for the ATEG listserv to be most effective, the non-grammarians (i.e, linguists and all who think like them, e.g, rhetoricians), should have their own separate forum. They are an impediment to those who want to "teach English grammar", which is what ATEG is about.
		  
		Grammarians struggle for coherence. Linguists are fascinated by incoherence. Two different disciplines. Two different goals. Two different results. Two different worlds.
		  
		It is my observation that linguists dominate this listserv to the exclusion of grammarians, who are rarely willing to risk life and limb by getting caught in the linguist's withering cross-fire. 
		 
		(If you don't believe this last statement, count the number of linguists who have posted since this item appeared on 21 July versus the number of grammarians who have posted. Go ahead. Rack 'em up. See for yourself. I'll play "over-under" with you at 90% and I'll take "over". Any takers?) 
		  
		There needs to be a separate Assembly for the Teaching of English Linguistics for those to whom it applies.
		  
		.brad.21july10. 
		
		 
		Herb is a fine fellow and what he says below is very, very interesting, even fascinating, but it has nothing to do with Teaching English Grammar, the TEG of ATEG.
		 
		.brad.02aug10.

		
________________________________

		From: "STAHLKE, HERBERT F" <[log in to unmask] <https://webmail.heritage.edu/Exchange/Castilleja_j/Drafts/RE:%20Teaching%20English%20Grammar.EML?Cmd=replyall&Create=0#> >
		To: [log in to unmask] <https://webmail.heritage.edu/Exchange/Castilleja_j/Drafts/RE:%20Teaching%20English%20Grammar.EML?Cmd=replyall&Create=0#> 
		Sent: Mon, August 2, 2010 9:17:38 PM
		
		Subject: Re: question about negative contractions
		Julie,
		
		I'm not sure how we got to "crick" dialects from what I responded to Craig with, but you raise a fair question and make a good point.  Standard English exists, or, rather, Standard Englishes exist.  Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi speaks a Southern Standard.  Ted Kennedy spoke a New England Standard.  Broadcast Standard draws on both Northern and Northern Midlands Standards.  There is a Scots Standard in Edinburgh and a British Standard, RP and now increasingly Estuary English, in England, and an Indian Standard in India.  Obviously I could go on, but I'll spare us all.  There is actually a lively research area looking at what we define as Standard and how we came to do so.  SE British English became standard in part because of the plague in the 14th c., which killed off so many people that the Chancery took on the task to develop new land law and to resolve disputes as to land ownership, which, given how many landowners died, became pretty messy, as you can imagine.  Much of real estate law today goes back to the 14th c. Chancery.  Chancery English in the late 14th c. gathered such power that it became the dialect of choice of those in power, and over the next three or four centuries the English of London-Oxford-Cambridge became standard.  Of course, three centuries before the plague hit, West Saxon, across the island from London, was the standard, but the Normans put a sudden and ruthless end to that, and there was no English standard until after the plague years of the 14th c., when English once again became the language not just of the court but more broadly of formal discourse.  Standard is inherently a messy thing and is inherently related to political, economic, and military power.  It's a fascinating topic.
		
		Herb
		
		
		

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Ms. Ann V. Fetterman
Instructor in English
Nittany Success Center
Penn State York
717-771-4162

















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" 

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and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/