Reading: The Great Grammar Debate
By Mimi Rothschild
Introduction
Grammar is often defined simply as "how words and their component parts combine to form sentences" (Oxford 2001). Unfortunately, the definition of grammar and the reality of its existence in our language are neither simple nor easily definable. Linguists have for years fought over whether the "rules" of language are fixed or dynamic, and educational theorists have toiled in a parallel circles, over how it should be taught (if it is even to be "taught" at all). This paper will attempt to pick through some of that noise and see if any sense can be made of the sense of language, as well as pose a recommendation as to where it should reside in the pedagogy of our school systems.
A Little History
Linguists can generally be divided into two groups: "prescriptivists", or those who hold that language is set in stone by fixed rules, and "descriptivists", or those who believe that language is a dynamic entity that evolves from the cracks and patterns of actual usage (Cameron 1995). There was a time, not so long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, when the prescriptivists were the ostensible monarchy of the grammar kingdom in the United States; a time when everyone seemed fairly clear about what should be taught and in what order (Nunberg 1983). Verbs in all their complexity dominated the scene, and conjugations and inflections were learned by repeating everything until you threw up. The result was that while many grammarians-to-be understood a good deal about how English was constructed, many also found writing to be a tiresome and confusing process that did little more than tease the boundaries of sanity (Finegan 1980).
All kidding aside, such a process, which requires a mastery of "the rules" before advancing to content, takes a great deal of time to master. Picturing yourself in a foreign country should be enough to realize that this simply is not very practical for many learners. In the eyes of this process, for example, a student cannot be expected to write a term paper (or even a simple paragraph) until he has passed through the "rules" stage. Neither can an English language learner feel comfortable to communicate in English if he's focused solely on whether the words he uses are "right" or "wrong."
The obvious fallacies of this system did not enter into the American consciousness until World War II, when the army realized that servicemen immersed in an intense language program simply did not have the time to learn the rules of the target language (usually German, as was the case with the author's grandfather). Grammatical supremacy, consequently, gave way to a "stimulus-response system" in which learners memorized a catalog of responses to certain prompts that mirrored situations outside the classroom (Milroy 1991). Grammar from this direction is not analyzed in the classroom but, in theory, enters the consciousness by some mysterious osmosis. Unfortunately it also fails to equip students to produce original utterances of their own. Speaking from a personal account, the author remembers an instance while living in Ecuador when he had a young Ecuadorian friend, Stanley, who had learned some English via this second method. Every time Stanley was asked a question, such as "do you want to go to the park?" or "do you like this movie?" he would respond with the text he had learned in class: "I do, but Jose doesn't". No, Stanley was not crazy, it was just that "Jose" existed only in the drills he had used in class.
Clearly this method is not adequate for an in-depth acquisition of the language and, consequently, not adequate for teaching anyone the explicit rules of grammar. Thanks to thousands of cases like Stanley, the language gurus birthed from the cosmic bowels of their genius a third method, frequently referred to as the "cognitive approach" (Finegan 1980). Under this method students are introduced to patterns of "correct" language, which, after enough time, promises to eventually enable them to deduce the rules for themselves. Our new linguistic kings assured the world that the element of discovery within this process somehow "made language learning exciting" (SAY WHAT?) and the grammar easier to assimilate than anything simply learned by repetition (Cameron 1995).
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
Electronic reproduction of this article is permitted if content is published unchanged, appropriate credit is given, and the article title links to corresponding article webpage.
The Great Grammar Debate - Part IIRead more about the Great Grammar Debate so that you know how grammar is learned and taught so you can more effectively teach your homeschooler grammar.
