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A number of studies demonstrated that the teaching of grammar wasn't effective.
However - as an educator I beg to disagree. The way grammar was taught back then was dreadful! It was soooo boring. In other countries such as across Europe they continued to teach grammar effectively.
Watch someone fish with the wrong bait or technique and they'll say that fishing isn't very effective.
However - as an educator I beg to disagree. The way grammar was taught back then was dreadful! It was soooo boring. In other countries such as across Europe they continued to teach grammar effectively.
Watch someone fish with the wrong bait or technique and they'll say that fishing isn't very effective.
Gouzi · 26-30, M
@Abstraction What is the best way to teach grammar?
Abstraction · 61-69, M
@Gouzi The most effective is when someone wants to learn - such as learning a new language. They have a reason to want to solve it.
There's a more complex answer, but that would be long an boring.
There's a more complex answer, but that would be long an boring.
Abstraction · 61-69, M
@Abstraction Grammar is being creative with language and in the process of creating. It's helping them understand that the way they arrange the words can have an impact on the reader. It can be more powerful. That's how it's taught.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
So much of what I read or hear now suggests not only poor teaching of grammar, but also very poor teaching of comprehension of words, including etymology.
Hence for example, all the tautology we encounter; common ones being "meet/consult with someone", and "revert back to".
Or missed and distorted meanings: so for example, does a "quad bike" have six or eight wheels, does your "mobile telephone" have a motor and wheels then?
'
Spellings too, can have significant effects if used without care for etymology. A science teacher showed me the following example, of professionals who really should know better, not properly understanding even their own technical terms!
The geological time-span, the Cainozoic, was called that because it means "full of life", or "rich in life".
American geologists went their own sweet way, ignored the roots and called it the "Cenozoic"; but have now pushed the international geological community into copying them, disingenuously calling it the "international" spelling.
The teacher explained to me that this changing Caino to Ceno unfortunately reverses the meaning to "devoid of life"!
Hence for example, all the tautology we encounter; common ones being "meet/consult with someone", and "revert back to".
Or missed and distorted meanings: so for example, does a "quad bike" have six or eight wheels, does your "mobile telephone" have a motor and wheels then?
'
Spellings too, can have significant effects if used without care for etymology. A science teacher showed me the following example, of professionals who really should know better, not properly understanding even their own technical terms!
The geological time-span, the Cainozoic, was called that because it means "full of life", or "rich in life".
American geologists went their own sweet way, ignored the roots and called it the "Cenozoic"; but have now pushed the international geological community into copying them, disingenuously calling it the "international" spelling.
The teacher explained to me that this changing Caino to Ceno unfortunately reverses the meaning to "devoid of life"!
EugenieLaBorgia · F
Grammar requires laws and an order with the words that it uses. The words that it uses must have a standardized meaning. These days, it is customary for the beguiled and the bereft-of-reason to make up meanings for any word that they stumble upon. If we do not use standardized dictionaries and meanings for words, grammar and syntax fall into disarray and communication becomes wholly ineffective.
SW-User
I'd disagree in the UK. In key stage 2 now a large chunk of time is dedicated to SPAG Spelling Punctuation And Grammar.
However it is via a set of rules the government laid down and language is actually a continuously involving entity. Now according to the SPAG rules you can only use an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence beginning with either How or What. 🤷♂️
However it is via a set of rules the government laid down and language is actually a continuously involving entity. Now according to the SPAG rules you can only use an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence beginning with either How or What. 🤷♂️
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@SW-User I am pleased to read that, though not sure if the SPAG programme designers are always right.
Surely, a sentence starting with "How" and in many cases, with "What", is a question; if so, would ending it with an exclamation-mark be wrong!, sorry, ?
A shop in Weymouth had the word Eat's in its prominent sign-writing. It attracted a lot of adverse comment, though it is said sometimes bad publicity is good for business, and eventually it was corrected to Eats - still poor English but at least without the apostrophe!
There - I've used a "!" without a How or What.
'
I do agree languages evolve, especially when new words are needed for genuinely novel, physical things or abstract entities. My tourists' hand-book to basic Greek, for example, says that although someone who learnt the language from Classical Greek literature would be understood by a modern Greek, but would sound very old-fashioned and stilted.
However, this used to be a gradual process, altering style more than definitions but accepting new terms for new things, including those in linguistic borrowings. English is deeply Graeco-Latinate but borrows much from Scandinavia (especially in Northern English) and India, for example. Sadly though, so many changes now are forced and accepted by ignorance, carelessness or ill-will, that a formerly-mellifluous and expressive language becomes weak, debased and clumsy.
Perhaps now, thirty-five years after 1984, George Orwell's "Newspeak" is not quite the fiction it was.
Surely, a sentence starting with "How" and in many cases, with "What", is a question; if so, would ending it with an exclamation-mark be wrong!, sorry, ?
A shop in Weymouth had the word Eat's in its prominent sign-writing. It attracted a lot of adverse comment, though it is said sometimes bad publicity is good for business, and eventually it was corrected to Eats - still poor English but at least without the apostrophe!
There - I've used a "!" without a How or What.
'
I do agree languages evolve, especially when new words are needed for genuinely novel, physical things or abstract entities. My tourists' hand-book to basic Greek, for example, says that although someone who learnt the language from Classical Greek literature would be understood by a modern Greek, but would sound very old-fashioned and stilted.
However, this used to be a gradual process, altering style more than definitions but accepting new terms for new things, including those in linguistic borrowings. English is deeply Graeco-Latinate but borrows much from Scandinavia (especially in Northern English) and India, for example. Sadly though, so many changes now are forced and accepted by ignorance, carelessness or ill-will, that a formerly-mellifluous and expressive language becomes weak, debased and clumsy.
Perhaps now, thirty-five years after 1984, George Orwell's "Newspeak" is not quite the fiction it was.
Firespirit · 26-30, M
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4meAndyou · F
If grammar studies were posted as multiple choice quizzes on mobile phones, with lots of emojis and point systems for "winning", the children might actually pay attention. I don't think teachers can compete with phones.
Then there is the whole issue of inner city slang, deliberate mispronunciations so that children can pretend to be cool, gang slang, and so on.
Then there is the whole issue of inner city slang, deliberate mispronunciations so that children can pretend to be cool, gang slang, and so on.
SW-User
Neither is math. People pull out calculators for silliest of things and then while about jobs being shipped.
midnightsun · 26-30, M
Autocorrect
