Judy,

If you find that research on metalanguage and children, please send me a
Bib. on it.  I'd like to pursue it further.  Thanks.

I have no doubt that math and grammar are related in terms of brain
activity.  Maybe that is why many people in humanities can't fathom why we
think it is important.  Perhaps we're in the wrong division.

Jeff Glauner
Park University



-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Diamondstone
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 6/21/00 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: putting grammar back

Connie, Jeff

re: meta-language, I believe that there IS research from Australia on
that
point -- I can try to find out. In any case, there is LOTS of anecdotal
evidence to support it. Children GO FOR language -- it's power, and they
know it. They love to learn big words (and like to be positioned as
authorities at home).

I also think the plan to advocate LANGUAGE in the curriculum rather than
grammar is a great idea. But I would argue even further than Bill to put
language "back" in a thematically integrated, child-centered curriculum
--
or at the very least, to use the subject of language to introduce topics
and
problems that are compelling to students: communicating authority or
lack of
authority; sounding 'like' a someone (doctor lawyer confused person or
whatever) -- in short, focusing on language and social life, where
students'
intuitions about and 'natural' interest in language are grounded.

It wouldn't surprise me if math and grammar were cognitively linked --
they're both really visual -- that is, abstract visual, emphasizing
relations among things. Judy


Judith Diamondstone  (732) 932-7496  Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183