The following are my views on some of the issues that have been raised by
Connie and Martha -- I don't claim to speak from any privileged location;
I'm invested in the issues for my own reasons. When I had to teach a course
on language to preservice teachers, I became intensely interested in the
question of what "picture" of language -- what theory -- might be most
useful to English teachers. I do think it's important to start with a theory
of language; I don't see traditional grammar as a theory. I also think it's
important to show students how language works in a way that excites them,
makes them curious, helps them to feel confident about their own intuitions
about language (as Martha said).
When I went searching around for materials, there was very little available.
I had used Halliday in my research -- SFG (& the Prague school before
Halliday) offers a principled way to compare texts that are produced in
different contexts for different purposes. It's a text-based view of language.
I was very attracted to the notion of hooking formal features to the
purposes they serve for pedagogical reasons. After learning more about the
grammar (SFG), I realized that I could never teach the grammar itself -- for
lOTS of reasons. But I still like the idea of describing language in such a
way that it is not divorced from meaning.
In general, I want English teachers to understand how language is used for
thinking, for getting things done, for identity -- big stuff like that.
Harry Noden's notion of 'brush strokes' is for me a wonderful way of
thinking and talking about grammar. English teachers need to understand the
structure of language well enough to help their students use language more
effectively in talking and writing. I favor a systematic approach to
teaching language in context. I like Christine Pappas's work very much:
An Integrated Language Perspective in the Elementary School: An
Action Approach.
by Pappas, Barbara Kiefer, and Linda Levstik. Published by Longman.
It is not a grammar book, though.
I'm inclined to agree with both Martha and Connie on how much grammar to
teach - that is, I think, like Connie, that it should be minimal but with
elaboration; I agree with Martha that it should be systematic.
Some of the functional terms that I find illuminating about the nature of
the English language are those that show the way English language cuts up
the universe of experience -- they set up categories or bins that students
can try to 'fill' with vocabulary they find. Consider the sentence, "my
father died." Which bin does the noun phrase go in? Is it an Actor/Agent, a
Behaver,or a Goal? Which bin does the verb phrase go in -- is it Doing,
Behaving, or Relating? Students can categorise words taken from a set of
sentences, labeled in formal terms. What kinds of verb phrases goes with
what kinds of noun phrases? A grammarian would have various tests to apply
to determine which bin, but even students working intuitively can "see"
something about what our language makes possible and what it blurs. We can
invite our students to become linguists (Walt Wolfram's exercises of course
are excellent for this purpose too) and sociolinguists (looking at their own
and others' talk) -- I just had a student who did not particularly like my
class show me his teacher-research project that used Halliday's/ Gay Su
Pinnnell's terms for functions of talk to examine how talk gets used in
classrooms. He was the student that year who liked my course the LEAST, but
he was also one of the ones who showed me in the end that the course had
been successful.
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
|
