My poor head cannot keep up with the complexity of all the things being discussed on this list, but I have a number of points and questions. (I cut and pasted # 5 to put it first.)
5. Would anyone object to my posting many of the messages on this thread on our web site? Many of the messages are long and substantive, and I hate to see them get lost. (I can, as far as I know, do so without express permission, but I'm simply asking if there would be any objections?)
1. Johanna asked about my bibliographies. There is a short one at www.sunlink.net/rpp, and much longer ones at www.pct.edu/courses/evavra/Bib. The crucial works are by Hunt, Loban, and O'Donnell ¯ their studies attempted to describe the nature of natural syntactic development. (Unlike, for example, Mellon, O'Hare, etc., who attempted to compare teaching and not-teaching.)
The curriculum I am suggesting is described at www.sunlink.net/rpp/GC.htm.
2. I think that Johanna will find that she and I agree IN PRINCIPLE on all major points. The devil is in the details.
3. I think we need to make a clear distinction between teaching grammar to non-native speakers as opposed to native speakers. For example, I see no reason for dealing with the question of single-word modifiers with native speakers, ESPECIALLY BECAUSE MANY, IF NOT MOST NATIVE SPEAKERS CANNOT NOW IDENTIFY A VERB, CLAUSE, ETC. In other words, first things first.
4. I found Burkhard's explanation of valences fascinating, especially since, in my approach, I regularly speak of S / V / C "slots." But as Johanna noted, Burkhard's explanation raises some VERY serious problems, especially in terminology, i.e., "sentence." I firmly believe that we should have NATIONAL agreement about the "pedagogical" meaning of some basic grammatical terms. Most of us, for example, can follow along when one of us talks about infinitive "clauses." I would suggest, however, that most school teachers ¯ and their students ¯ would be confused by terms which shift meaning like that. And, I think that a student who lives in California ( ¯ Don't know why anyone would want to ;) ¯ ) and then moves to Kentucky should be able to change school systems without the BASIC grammatical definitions changing meaning for them. I think our main problem is in deciding which terms are BASIC, and how we want to define them. (I don't think that problem is really that difficult, if we use common sense. Most of us, for example, mean the same thing when we speak of prepositional phrases, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, finite verbs, subjects, objects, ...)
Thanks,
Ed
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