Teaching ESL students the common word order (SVO) in English is a 
good introduction to the English language, especially when the 
structure of their languages differs a lot from English. Structures 
with "There is..." are difficult even for advanced learners of the 
English language and very few beginners would understand the logical 
subject of such a sentence. 

I find Celce-Murcia's "The Grammar Book" a good information source 
for teachers who specialize in ESL teaching.


Eduard 


On Thu, 4 May 2006, McJ wrote...

>Linda DiDesidero wrote:
>
>> If the subject is simply the word that is sitting in the subject 
>> position, then the tag test will work.  And I'd wager that the 
only 
>> subject we are talking about when we teach ESL is the word that 
is in 
>> the subject slot.
>
>And this raises the question of why teach "grammar" in ESL. If we 
are 
>asking students to identify the subject, there must be some reason 
for 
>doing this.
>
>Course book writers love grammar, since it gives them something to 
fill 
>their workbooks with. Teachers like it since it gives them 
something 
>that is relatively easy to test. Students like it since it allows 
them 
>to easily predict what will be asked on exams. Yet, in terms of 
>communicative competence, the  best language users are not 
necessarily 
>the best sussed on grammar.
>
>Omar
>
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