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I was teaching a grade eleven university bound English class. The grammar sentence was on the Smartboard. I had just explained elliptical clauses. One student – a particularly exuberant boy, ‘Bill’ – was eager to offer a correction. He proceeded to correct the sentence by inserting the name of a classmate, ‘Bob’; thus, generating a few laughs from the class. I was not sure how to address this in the moment. Although the other student showed somewhat annoyance, there didn’t seem to be ‘major’ upset over the jibe. We continued to take up the work, and suddenly Bob throws up his hand with urgency, and I think, It’s only right that I let him have ownership of this sentence. Sure enough he inserts Bill’s name and the class is in stitches again.
Poetic justice. Bill is not offended – he loves the attention. Who would have thought that grammar could be fun!
The best part of this unplanned memorable moment – the student’s understood the elliptical sentence. When I retold this story to a colleague, non-English teacher of course, he said the above outlandish sentence. Grammar may not often be fun, but it is important to teach. It is through grammar that clarity of expression is achieved.
Without it, your message will not be received.
Give up Teaching Formal Language
I agree that teaching grammar is uber important. People are so often judged by how well they write or speak…right or wrong, it lays the foundation for our future. ~ Linnea
When I was a student in grade eight, I had a teacher who had the class complete some very difficult vocabulary exercises. There were twenty words which had to be defined and then twenty sentences in which to place them correctly. The words were so difficult that I had to use a dictionary to learn the definitions. I realized a few years later, in hindsight, that I had retained a great many of those words. I don’t think we do enough of such exercises today and although general vocabulary is adequate, specific and precise vocabulary in serious, formal writing is lacking.
Totally agree. Language is all about communication and the more clearly and precisely we speak and write the better we will be understood. This is one of the reasons I believe that vocabulary is so important. The more words we know the more exactly and descriptively we can speak. I heard an interesting interview on how a limited vocabulary also results in a limited ability to think!