Gretchen,

Thanks for your information. It is indeed time-consuming and 
resource-intensive to develop, field-test, and then do controlled 
studies with new teaching materials. That's why our goals are taking so 
long to be realized!!! If I could get a grant that would reduce my 
teaching substantially, I could do all kinds of stuff. Same with 
schoolteachers -- who's going to fund their participation in such work?

It sounds like the material you're testing requires knowledge (of 
subjects, direct objects?) that students don't already possess. What's 
needed, though, is a program that is designed to teach them these exact 
things ...

There are, however, some very quick tricks to help students catch up on 
material they don't already know, mostly by using their subconscious 
knowledge of grammar. Identifying parts of speech, isolating phrases 
from within sentences, testing sentences for "completeness" -- there are 
tricks for all these things. If you don't know about these, I can lead 
you to a few sources.

I will keep you in mind for future projects!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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