Ed,

Thanks for the web links. I will explore them. I did go to the first one
you gave, and that's the one that confused me. I hit "start with simple
sentences", got a list of exercises with one highlighted, clicked on
that, and found an exercise that referred to "p. 18" and to another
exercise.

Where's the first lesson -- the ones teachers can use on day one, to
find prepositional phrases?

I'm glad to hear that your students can handle sentences with
grammatical constructions they haven't studied yet. Mine haven't had
such success with such sentences. It's been a while since I tried it;
maybe trying it now, having refined many of my teaching strategies, it
would work better.

As to teaching the students linguistics, I do have to. My students are
future teachers. I am not so concerned with their own editing and
writing abilities (though this is very important, of course). I am
concerned that they understand a great deal about language, so that they
can handle it properly in their K-12 classrooms. Hence I have to teach
about phonetics and phonology, so that they understanding spelling and
reading instruction; I have to teach about morphology and lexicon, so
that they understand vocabulary instruction;  I have to teach syntax so
that they can teach grammar; I have to teach about language acquisition
so that they know what their children know when, and how the children
learn what they know, the difference between subconscious and conscious
knowledge of grammar, etc. I have to teach about diversity so that they
don't lower their expectations for children who speak other dialects or
languages, and so that they sensitize their teaching of "proper grammar"
so that it ceases to give an automatic disadvantage to children from
nonstandard dialect backgrounds. They also have to be able to
distinguish effective bilingual education from trash, such as the
current trash which is law in the state of California.

California requires only _one_ semester or quarter of linguistics for
future teachers. This is a joke. California has recently undertaken a
major overhaul of the teacher credentialing system. They have
incorporated far more content (future English teachers need to know a
lot of linguistics, as well as be able to teach journalism, drama,
literature, composition ... ). But they have shortened teacher education
in the state college system, the major teacher-training institution in
CA. Used to be a student would take an undergraduate major in a subject
or in Liberal Studies, then do one or two full years in a postgraduate
education school. Now they do a mixed undergraduate major of education
and something else, and one more quarter beyond the baccalaureate
degree. And the state excpects to get better teachers from this. Ha!

***************************************************
Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~  E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
***************************************************

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