Chapters 1 & 2 Blog Summary

Responses due by Wednesday, Nov. 12th, at class time
_____________________________________________

Grammar, and the Teaching of Grammar

In chapter one, the book discusses what many people believe grammar to be. There are many different parts that fall into grammar, such as, parts of speech, syntactic structures, sentence structure, etc. But what is grammar. One definition that the book gives is "a description of the syntax of a language." That is to say grammar is breaking down and understanding sentence structure. Another definition states that grammar is "a set of prescriptions or rules for using language."

There are other definitions listed as well, but the book decides to tie them all together in one definition saying that grammar is "the unconscious command of syntax that enables us to understand and speak the language." The book as a whole chooses four main points to focus on: Grammar as a description of syntactic structure; Grammar as prescriptions for how to use structures and words; Grammar a rhetorically eggective use of syntactic structures; Grammar as the functional command of sentence structure that enables us to comprehend and produce language.

Throughout time grammar has been used to reach two major points: discipling and training the mind and teaching grammatical forms and word usages that were considered correct or socially prestigious. People in higher power were taught to understand the language others were left out. Another important fact mentioned is that early text books were based on the Latin grammars. As time passed people saw this as a problem. They wanted their own language. Therefore the English language was created based on rules of Latin grammar. The book states that for certain parts of the sentence, that if it could not be used in the Latin writing, then it should not be functional in the English Grammar.

Over the years, the English language has developed more. More linguist have studied and learned to understand it more. These new developments leave us with the issue of teaching grammar in the same old way. They teaching methods are ineffective. In the 19th century, teachers used memorization and recitation for many of their lessons. The students could regurgitate what the teacher had said, but were they really learning anything?

This brings us to Chapter two. In chapter two we see different researchers theories tested in order to see how effective certain teaching methods are. When reading, it did not seem to me, that the researchers were having much luck determining how to help students truly understand. "all teaching of grammar separate from the manipulation of sentences be discontinued… since every scientific attempt to prove that knowledge of grammar is useful has failed." Another point mentioned was that certain times, people were experimenting and not doing very good tests. For example, two reasearchers, Braddock and Meckel, did the same experiment and got "rather different" results. Certain types of teaching are not working.

The book list some alternative teaching methods: Teach only "correct" punctuation; Restrict the teaching of grammar as a system to elective classes and units, offered with no pragmatic justification as an incentive; promote the acquisition and use of grammatical constructions through reading; Emphasize the production of effective sentences rather than their analysis, etc.

Things to think about: Will you continue to teacher grammar as a separate entity or incorporate it into other lessons. How will you teach these lessons? How was grammar taught to you? Do you feel all the methods to have been effective?