As an English major, I was not required to take any grammar at all.  For
fun, I took an introductory linguistics class, a class in ASL (American
Sign Language), one in language acquisition, two years' worth of Latin, one
of Old English, and--finally--an excellent grammar class, entitled Modern
Grammar, taught by an exuberant prof. out of an intelligent, exuberant book.

That book drew on the concepts not only of traditional grammar but of
structural and transformational grammar as well.  Although I was
comfortable with grammatical concepts, grammar was more a puzzle to me of
interest in and of itself.  The approach of this book was to relate grammar
to what I did as a speaker of the language in constructing and parsing
sentences.  And, something I'd not experienced before, this book emphasized
*system.*  This wasn't a collection of rag-tag rules and guidelines.  It
was a complete (or what felt like a complete) analysis, in language that
was accessible to anyone willing to invest a bit of time in study.  (But,
then, isn't that what classes are all about?)

It was a turn on, and not only to me.  Plenty of other students--students
without an extensive background in grammar, in some cases without any
background at all--were turned on to grammar in this class.

I now use a slimmed down spin-off of that same book to teach adult
students, many of whom arrive to class with little previous grammar study.
Consistently, quarter after quarter, I hear back from these students that
they have never been taught grammar in this way.  They leave thinking of
grammar in terms of something that they own, something that they do with
language, something that is, or that can be in time, accessible.  And
something that has to do not only with individual sentences, but with how
those sentences come together to form cohesive and coherent units of
thought.

I don't think students (in the past anyway--don't know whether this has
changed) were ever taught grammar in a way that related it to what it is
that we as language-weavers do with language, nor were they ever taught it
in a coherent, systematic fashion.  All of us, when we learn something new,
need a framework to hang things on, and most grammar instruction was framed
in terms of doing exercises out of a handbook.  The handbook may be a handy
little reference, but a tutorial it is not.

A semester of such instruction?  Nothing could be duller.  Or less likely
to stick.

In the context of a freshman comp class, which is where most of us when I
was in school encountered grammar instruction (if we were very lucky),
these exercises felt like little forays into the area of superficial or
cosmetic "correctness"--we did these exercises so as not to receive essays
back with stinging red marks in the margins that dealt not with substance
but mechanics, so that no one could fault us for the way in which we poured
our thoughts into words.  No one suggested that grammar itself is thought.

Little wonder it had no impact on our writing.


Odile

UCSC Extension Instructor
Technical Editor
 . . . Residing in Silicon Valley