What an excellent topic. I have a student teacher at this time who is working on his English teaching certification, but he absolutely knows no grammar. I find myself having to teach him just as I do my high school students. I didn't know much grammar or grammar terminology either when I started teaching, but I was determined to teach it to my students. By teaching it, I have learned it. One thing for sure, you learn by teaching.
I don't mean to being up an old argument, but technically there is no accusative or dative in modern English, rather there is an oblique case used for pronouns. Techincally an accusative has a set function most commonly as the direct object of a verb, where as the oblique case is simple the object of a verb/preposition. Additionally it may also be said that English has one additional case, the genitive.Originally Posted by SleepyWitch
accusative?do you mean case grammar/deep case/semantic roles?
of course I'm being provocativeyep, some linguists say there's a gerund in English and some say there isn't, I'll get an update on all the pros and cons in my grammar class on Thursday.
There is certainly a gerund in English. Just because the gerund form shares its expression with another tense does not necesarily cease to mean it is an independant grammatical function. A. example fo this is the third person singular persent and the genetive 's.' They both share the same termination (and the genitive only came to be written with an apostrophe a few hundred years ago), but they are grammatically distinct. The act of making a verb a noun in an indo-european language nornally qualifies it for gerund status. In fact, in English there are two ways to make it a gerund, but that does not remove its gerund status.
That being said, Sleepy was right about 90% of English grammar books being fundamentally useless. They are normally based in Latin grammar which normally, but not in this case, misrepresent English grammar by saying things like "Thous shalt not split thine infinitives" which is based on the Latin understanding of the infinitive grafted onto English. Same thing goes ending sentances with prespositions. Those rules are all made up and unatural to the English language.
In these days, old man, no one thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, so why should we? They talk of the people, the proletariat, and I talk of the mugs. It's the same thing. They have their five year plan and I have mine.-Harry Lime, The Third Man novella by Graham Greene
you missed being taught grammar simply because the American education system sucks. ugh. i'm curious what lit books you were required to read in that writing, literature, and research program.I've noticed a lot more often lately that while I know an awful lot about literature, that I seem to have missed out on all the terminology concerning English grammar. Students come for help at the Writing Center saying that their professors have noted problems in compound this or subjective that...and I have to go look it all up, because I haven't heard of it.
Makes me feel inadequate, it does...
I've been trying to catch up on it all, so that if I wind up teaching a class and I'm expected to teach grammar, I'll be able to...but my degree only requires writing, literature, and researching courses...no basic grammar courses. How did I miss this in school? Has anyone else experienced this fluency in literature but lack of knowledge regarding grammar terminology? I'm not saying that I can't spot bad grammar...I'm just saying that I can't put a name to what is wrong somethimes...
a professor of mine once said that there seems to be a battle every 5 years or so, causing schools to focus on grammar, then literature, then grammar, then literature...but, I don't know...did I get caught in a lit cycle? (not that I'm complaining
"He was nauseous with regret when he saw her face again, and when, as of yore, he pleaded and begged at her knees for the joy of her being. She understood Neal; she stroked his hair; she knew he was mad."
---Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
Read Shoots, Eats and Leaves. It reviews grammar rules while sending you into hysterics! For more formal review, try the book by Shrunk and White - a classic!
All that we non native writers in English feel with regard to English grammar is to apply articles and prepositions correctly and suitably. More often than not most writers make mistakes about the use of articles and a few about the use of prepositions. Or else our English is OK. We are not running short of vocabulary. It is now a problem, but the main problem is with grammar.
Another problem facing me is to bring naturalism or coherence on my use of English. In these I lack and call for more and more exercise.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
Hi Shan,
as a teacher of English for foreign learners in Germany I often use the grammar book "Practical English Usage" by Michael Swan. It's basically written for foreigh learners and their teachers but it gives clear and reliable advice and it helps you to find things quickly and easy. So it might be a fast help for you as a native speaker, too. There are a lot of examples and the book also covers the main exceptions to the rules.
Maybe you have a try?!
Ella
I was educated in England in the 70s, and so received no lessons in grammer what-so-ever. It was also unfashionable to correct a student's spelling, for fear of discourageing his/her imaginative effort. It was a progressive comprehensive school, taking kids from 12 up to 18.
I still struggle to write correctly and to spell correctly, I have no confidence in using full stops and commas, let alone anything else. Everything I manage in this regard has come from my reading in later life.
I notice on British message boards there is a very poor standard of English and English grammer. By comparison, the standard on this board is frighteningly high, especially from American contributors.
So don't be too quick to dis the American education system.
I learned very little about grammar terminology and rules in elementary and high school. In my college teaching program, I had a class in teaching grammar, but I got very little out of it. I learned about grammar by teaching it. Now, I only teach literature as I teach at at the college prep level and my students have few grammar problems, but when they do, I can deal easily with them because of years and years of teaching courses and students where I needed to talk about and teach grammar. Consequently, I think the best way to learn it, as with many other things, is to teach it.
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