Grammar instruction -- United States
As
in other English-speaking countries, in the United States, the pendulum in Language
Arts instruction has swung back and forth between "explicit teaching"
and "immersion"; between "basic skills" (phonics; grammar)
and "whole language" (thematic units; critical thinking). At the secondary
level, the English Education curriculum is dominated by literature. Meanwhile,
in the classroom, teachers struggle to provide students what they need to become
effective participants in the literacy-based world outside the school.
In high school, because the day is short, writing,
if there is no separate class for it, is primarily in response to literary texts.
At all levels, "grammar instruction," if time is allotted for it,
typically draws on traditional grammar -- the five (or seven, or nine) "parts
of speech." Over the last decade, a group of educators who bemoan, for
widely varying reasons, the state of grammar instruction, has established intra-group
ties through a newsletter (Syntax in the Schools)
and a discussion list (ATEG). Initiated by
Ed Vavra under the auspices of the National Council
of Teachers of English, the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
(ATEG) has been working towards a coherent set of recommendations for the teaching
of grammar at each grade level.
This has not been easy, since members of the group hold radically different
beliefs about grammar and how it should be taught. Some
participants are interested only in grammar instruction that can improve writing;
others believe that language should be offered as a separate subject, as are
mathematics and geography. Some adhere to traditional grammar, others are formalists,
or favor cognitive linguistics, or a functional approach to language instruction.
The consensus that has emerged within the committee set up to develop recommendations
are reflected in the selected messages below.
(Posted with permission of the authors...)
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On this page: "What
is a sentence?" "Form,
Function (& Use)" "The
Grammar Debate"
What is a sentence?
Delivered-To: diamonju@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU
X-Sender: morenbm@po.muohio.edu
Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 14:27:08 -0400
Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
Sender: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
From: Max Morenberg
Subject: Re: What is a sentence?
To: ATEG@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
David, I've never been much of a notionalist (am I making
up this word?). I prefer to see myself as a pragmatist: if it allows students
to understand, use it, whether it comes from Chomsky, Pike, Lamb, Halliday,
or Curme. Or even Dionysius Thrax.
At any rate, I'd define a sentence as a stretch of written
discourse that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period. Sentence
has always been a questionable term. It was originally a period, a stretch of
discourse that ends with a punctuation mark that came to take its name. It was
always a rhetorical stretch (No pun intended. Well, maybe a little pun intended).
I guess this is all to say that I don't think you'll ever successfully define
a sentence.
But a clause. Now, that's got grammatical limits. Or, if
you want a greater possiblity, go for a T-unit. When you've got subjects and
predicates to discern, you can come close to putting definable limits on stretches
of discourse. Kelly Hunt discovered that no one had defined or could define
a sentence successfully. That's why he measured clauses and T-units. As a graduate
student, I worked for Kelly counting T-units. And I can tell you from experience
that even T-units are blasted hard to discern sometimes. Though not nearly so
difficult as sentences.
Ed is clearly right about what you might be able to teach
to students. Notional ideas are tough to get across. And why would you want
to anyway? The idea of a sentence is only an issue in writing. It's in part
a visual issue. It offends some people if you start with a capital and end with
a period a stretch of discourse that doesn't have a finite verb and/or a subject.
Though good writers do that all the time. All the time. And not just to answer
questions.
I think what you want to teach students is how to craft written
texts. And how to see craft in the writing of others. It seems to me that learning
about certain kinds of constituents helps. It gives you some vocabulary and
a conscious knowledge to discern that the last three "sentences" of the previous
paragraph aren't. Sentences, that is.
I'm not sure I helped you, David. But I'm not sure anyone
can help you define a sentence. Not with a definition that will hold up very
long. Not evern Aristotle.
Max *************************
Max Morenberg, Professor
English Department Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056
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Form, function (& use)
Form -- Function relations
Delivered-To: diamonju@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 11:00:10 -0400
From: "Rebecca S. Wheeler"
Reply-To: rwheeler@cnu.edu
Organization: Department of English, Christopher Newport University
X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 (Macintosh; I; PPC)
X-Accept-Language: en
Subject: Re: Goals and Content
A few words on our goals/content discussion:
Ed Vavra wrote: ..."Rather than focussing on a few important concepts and making
sure that student teachers can understand and apply them, i.e., that they have
learned them, we have a tendency to teach by covering lots of ground that interests
us. ..." Ed
I agree with Ed, that focusing on a few important
concepts, and making sure that student teachers can understand and apply them
is a central contribution we can make.
I suggest that one of the core "few important
concepts" about language structure which has emerged in the last 50 years, is
that of the contrast between FORM and FUNCTION.....<snip>
In my experience, students light up when they
discover in this case, that "Monday" is always and only a noun, in form, but
that it can do a variety of jobs (functions -- nominal, adjectival, adverbial)
in the sentence.
So, in my book, FORM and FUNCTION ought be among
the 'few important concepts' that we address.
Once we recognize form and function, we then realize
that the same insight has consequences for how many "parts of speech" we identify.
Martha points to two sets of key distinctions: form classes v. function classes:
Within the former comes the distinction of "form
classes" v. "structure classes". Form classes include nouns/verbs/adjectives/adverbs,
whereas structure classes include determiners, auxiliaries, qualifiers, prepositions,
conjunctions, etc.). Again, we have good justification for these contrasts using
the key notion of form v. function. Form class words are the open class, content
words of our language, major categories, so to speak, which take inflection
and derivation. On the other hand, structure class words are closed, grammatical
functors of our language, which perform very different kinds of jobs in the
sentences, and by and large do not take derivation or inflection (barring auxiliaries,
of course)..... <snip>
So, drawing on the single
core insight of form and function carries the immediate consequence that we
move beyond the traditional 8 parts of speech, specifically that we distinguish
word classes (form classes v. structure classes) and function classes (nominal,
verbal, adverbial, etc.).
This is the approach I would support.
Back to class prep,
rebecca
The grammar debate
Delivered-To: diamonju@RCI.RUTGERS.EDU
X-Sender: viceroy@popmail.eznet.net
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 11:43:25 -0500
Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
Sender: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
From: "William J. McCleary"
Subject: The Grammar Debate To: ATEG@LISTSERV.MUOHIO.EDU
....<snip>
We have, of course, discussed to the point of exhaustion the issues concerning
language instruction.... However, since the membership of this listserv changes
continually, perhaps a restatement of some of the results of that discussion
is in order. (This is my own take on the matter, so corrections and additions
will be welcome.)
1. Discussions about the teaching of grammar are subject to confusion over terminology,
for few writers take the time to explain whether they are referring to traditional
(schoolbook) grammar, a scientific grammar, usage/mechanics, or stylistic preferences.
2. The teaching of grammar suffers from its connection to the teaching of correctness
in writing. For many teachers, if grammar (however ones defines the term) cannot
be proven to help students reduce the errors in their writing, then it can be
safely eliminated from the curriculum. I think that it is the position of ATEG
that grammar should be taught as a liberal art--as a subject with many potential
uses, not just the elimination of errors from one's writing.
3. The teaching of grammar also suffers from the dominance of literature in
the English department. Prospective English teachers cannot get adequate training
in grammar from most college English departments. Indeed, some English departments
offer none. (Composition has the same problem.)
4. For many years much of the secondary English curriculum was consumed with
the teaching of grammar (defined as traditional grammar and mechanics/usage).
This was certainly true when I taught ninth grade in the 1960s. Furthermore,
this approach was defined not as the teaching of grammar but as the teaching
of composition. In other words, grammar and composition were considered the
"same thing" in many ways. There has been a strong backlash against that approach.
Composition is now treated as the practice of actual writing first and foremost,
with mechanics/usage taking a strong secondary position and grammar-as-syntax
a distant third. I think everyone agrees that this reform was long overdue,
though many lament how far grammar-as-syntax has been demoted.
5. There is abundant (though hotly disputed) evidence that the teaching of grammar
(defined as the teaching of syntax) does not improve student writing. In particular,
it does not help students improve the correctness of their writing. Drills on
matters of correctness also aren't very effective. I think that the most accepted
view at the moment is that direct teaching of usage/mechanics within the context
of the students' own writing is the most effective way of improving correctness.
6. We speculate that one reason students have difficult learning and applying
grammar (defined as syntax) is that they are being taught traditional schoolbook
grammar and that this kind of grammar is an inadequate and often incorrect description
of English syntax. Efforts to teach a more scientific grammar have not caught
on, possibly because there are no secondary school textbooks that use them,
or the scientific grammars are too technical.
7. To counter the problems of traditional grammar, we have discussed developing
what we have called a "pedagogical grammar." This would retain traditional terminology
to the extent possible, reduce coverage to the most essential concepts, and
eliminate the inadequacies of traditional grammar. At least one such grammar,
Ed Vavra's KISS approach, has been run up the flagpole, but so far has not achieved
widespread acceptance.
7. Presently ATEG is in the process of developing a grammar curriculum that
could be proposed for K-12. I'm not familiar with the present status of this
work, but I assume that it will have wider purposes than the traditional version.
Bill William J. McCleary
3247 Bronson Hill Road Livonia, NY 14487
716-346-6859
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