5 Why teach grammar?

Why, then, should grammar be taught? For some teachers, the only driving force is
because The Boss says so, where The Boss could stand for various figures ranging
from Head of Deartment, through Head Teacher, to the !ecretary of !tate for
"ducation# This is to be e$ected, given the owerful camaign that finally removed
grammar from the curriculum# For decades, teacher%trainers have been telling trainee
teachers that teaching grammar is a waste of time, or worse, and it is common to hear
grammatical analysis described as merely the naming of arts, a ointless e$ercise
in classification# &s ' shall e$lain in section "rror( )eference source not found, such
comments miss the oint almost entirely, but the fact is that these views are
influential#
There are, in fact, some very good reasons for teaching grammar, and
imroving writing is only one of them * an imortant reason, but by no means the
most imortant one# The debate about the ros and cons of grammar teaching had
such a negative outcome in art because it focused almost e$clusively on this reason,
ignoring all the others * imroved reading, foreign%language learning and general
thin+ing s+ills# 'magine a similar debate about the ros and cons of teaching algebra
which focused entirely on the benefits for domestic account%+eeing and concluded
against algebra on the grounds that it doesnt hel eole to avoid debt# ,ne of the
uroses of this boo+ is to restore the balance in the debate about grammar by
resenting a broader icture#
,ne imortant conse-uence of loo+ing beyond any one aim of grammar
teaching is to reframe the debate about the benefits of teaching grammar# .i+e any
other teaching activity, teaching grammar has a cost, in terms of time that could be
devoted to other worthwhile activities, in terms of teacher training and in terms of
uil commitment# The debate is about whether this cost is balanced, at least
sub/ectively in the eyes of teachers, by educational benefits to the uils, so it is
imortant to have a clear global view of both the costs and the benefits# 'f grammar
teaching roduces benefits in /ust one area, such as writing s+ills, these benefits must
balance the total cost of teaching grammar from scratch# But if the benefits are sread
across a wide range of areas, the cost er area is clearly much lower#
To see the imortance of this oint, consider two contrasting scenarios# 'n the
actual current scene, children +now very little grammar when they leave rimary
school, so any secondary teacher who wants to mention grammatical concets must
teach not only the concets concerned, but also a whole raft of elementary ideas
which underin them# Historically, this is the situation in which foreign%language
teachers found themselves in during the 0123s when "nglish teachers stoed
teaching grammar, and it is hardly surrising that grammar%free teaching methods for
teaching foreign languages became so oular# 4ow consider the scenario that e$ists
in some countries, in which children learn and consolidate a great deal of grammar in
rimary school# By the time they reach secondary school, basic grammatical concets
and terminology are familiar, so there is no cost at all to using them * indeed, the
Back to Becoming a grammar teacher.
more they are used, the more firmly they become entrenched in childrens minds#
&dmittedly a secondary teacher may need a secialised concet that the children have
not yet learned * such as modal verb, sub/unctive or ablative * it will be
relatively easy to teach because children already understand foundational concets
such as verb, sub/ect and subordinate# 'n this scenario, grammar is virtually cost%
free in secondary schools, and its costs in rimary are offset against a wide range of
benefits in secondary#
5.1 Writing
The first reason, then, is the one that most educationalists have concentrated on for the
last few decades( teaching grammar imroves first%language writing s+ills# The
argument is that mature academic writing 5the target of school literacy teaching6
re-uires high%level linguistic s+ills, including not only a broad vocabulary but also
sohisticated grammatical s+ills# These s+ills are of two +inds, negative and ositive(
standardness, meaning the avoidance of forms from the local 4on%standard
dialect 5e#g# aint67 this is sometimes called accuracy or correctness#
diversity, i#e# the sensitive use of a wide range of constructions, including
constructions that arent normally used at all in ordinary conversation 5e#g#
While working in the garden he injured himself6#
8ntil very recently this argument has carried very little weight in the "nglish%
sea+ing world because of the research 5mentioned earlier6 that urorted to show
that teaching grammar simly did not wor+ as a way of teaching either +ind of s+ill#
However this research had a fundamental flaw( all it showed was that grammar can be
taught ineffectively# Tyically, a class would have 5say6 a wee+ly lesson on grammar,
and their written wor+ would be comared with that of another class that had no such
lesson# The results showed that grammar is ineffective when taught in this way7 but it
did not show that this was the only ossible way to teach grammar#
The received wisdom has been overturned by two recent strands of research,
both conducted in Britain# !ince the 0113s, the sychologists 9eter Bryant and
Tere:inha 4unes and their colleagues in ,$ford have shown that e$licit instruction
in morhology 5the grammar of word%structure6 does indeed roduce measurable
ositive effects on childrens selling, their use of aostrohes, and the growth of
their vocabulary
0
# For e$amle, children were better able to distinguish lurals and
ossessives in airs such as boys and boys after ractising morhological analysis
than when the ractice involved /ust ronunciation or /ust meaning and synta$
5sentence structure6
;
# <ore recently, the educationalist Debra <yhill and colleagues
in "$eter have shown considerable benefits in a large%scale study from focused
teaching of secific grammatical atterns7 for instance, discussion of modal verbs
such as may and must roduced benefits in the childrens use of modal verbs in their
own writing
=
# Teaching is focused, in this sense, if it concentrates on atterns which
are then tested in the childrens writing# This is an imortant -ualification, which '
return to in section "rror( )eference source not found, because one of the main
roblems with revious research was that the teaching was unfocused, so what was
tested bore only a very general relation to what was taught * a rather obvious
wea+ness#
0
4unes and Bryant ;33>
;
Bryant and others ;33?
=
<yhill and others ;303
&nother imortant strand of research, this time from &merica, gives somewhat
wea+er suort for teaching grammar
?
# This research shows that a classroom activity
called sentence combining is good for the childrens writing s+ills# 'n sentence
combining, the teacher rovides two or three single%clause sentences for the class to
combine into a single sentence# For instance, given the sentences 506 The boys were
playing with the dog. 5;6 They were standing on the pavement# 5=6 It was barking
loudly, a class might synthesi:e a wide range of sentences including the following(
The boys who were standing on the avement were laying with the dog that
was bar+ing loudly#
The boys standing on the avement were laying with the loudly bar+ing dog#
While standing on the avement, the boys were laying with the dog bar+ing
loudly#
&lthough it was bar+ing loudly, the boys standing on the avement were
laying with the dog#
The research shows that this activity has a strong ositive effect on writing -uality#
The only uncertainty is about whether the activity can really be called teaching
grammar# <ost of the research literature rightly contrasts it with grammar teaching
as this is normally interreted, at least in the !tates# But as ' shall e$lain in section
"rror( )eference source not found, there are many ways of teaching grammar, and a
good case can be made for recognising sentence combining as one of these methods,
whether or not the teacher or students use technical grammatical metalanguage#
' introduced this discussion of writing s+ills by distinguishing negative
standardness and ositive diversity# Both are legitimate targets of grammar teaching if
the aim is for every school leaver to be able to write mature standard "nglish, but the
research that shows the ositive effects of grammar teaching has focused on diversity
rather than standardness# This is reasonable because the two goals are very different#
Teaching children to write isnt rather than aint is intellectually very easy, but may
raise emotional roblems for children who use aint in their family, esecially if aint
is labelled simly wrong 5or even worse, bad6# This +ind of teaching is often based
on a list of common grammatical errors which has been handed down from one
generation of school teachers, via their uils, to the ne$t# 'n contrast, teaching
children to use a wider range of modal verbs is intellectually difficult 5because of the
subtle meanings involved6, but emotionally easy since it doesnt threaten the
childrens identity# <oreover, it is rather obvious that telling children to avoid aint in
writing does have an effect, because most school leavers do avoid it in writing even if
they use it in seech7 whereas the received wisdom was that merely telling children
about modal verbs would have little or no effect on their use of modal verbs# The
main oint to emerge from this subsection is that this is wrong# Focused teaching of
secific grammatical oints does indeed increase the diversity of childrens writing#
5.2 Reading
&nother argument for teaching grammar is in imroving reading s+ills# This is where
it is imortant to stress that grammar means grammatical analysis rather than mere
error%avoidance# 'f the teaching of grammar was all about avoiding forms such as
aint, it would be irrelevant to reading7 after all, it is the author rather than the reader
that chooses what words to use# 'n contrast, grammatical analysis is highly relevant to
reading because it is simly a conscious and articulated version of the analysis that
any reader ma+es# To read a sentence is to analyse it * its words, its grammar and,
?
&ndrews and others ;33?b
ultimately, its meaning# The only differences between ordinary e$ert reading and
grammatical analysis are that the latter is comletely conscious and reflective, that it
is e$licitly e$ressed in terms of a standard terminology and notation, and 5of
course6 that it is much, much slower#
@rammatical analysis hels childrens reading in two ways, one very secific
and the other global# !ecific grammatical instruction hels children when reading
sentences with articularly difficult synta$# The evidence for this claim comes from
research by 4goni Ahiere
B
, wor+ing with non%academic 0C%year olds# The tas+ for
his sub/ects was to read comle$ sentences li+e The doctor knows that the fact that
taking good care of himself is essential surprises Tom, and then to answer -uestions
such as What does the doctor know? or What surprises Tom? &ll the sentences had a
similar syntactic structure, so it was ossible to train some sub/ects in handling
sentences with this structure by showing them how to brea+ the sentences down into
simler sentences and then to recombine these# The e$eriments showed that this
training had a clear ositive effect on comrehension s+ills, so trained sub/ects
understood the sentences better than untrained sub/ects did# .i+e the research on
writing reorted above, this research shows the benefits of highly focused grammar
teaching in which the construction taught is also the one tested in the research#
Turning to the global benefit of grammar teaching for reading, this is more a
matter of con/ecture than of research, but it is so lausible that it should be ta+en
seriously# The claim is that grammar teaching encourages uils to ay more attention
to grammatical structure in their reading * in other words, to notice it
>
# When we
meet a difficult or unfamiliar word or structure, we can react in different ways# &t one
e$treme, we can sto and loo+ at it to u::le out what it means and how it wor+s# This
is more li+ely if we are used to grammatical analysis because that is recisely what
such analysis consists of( wor+ing out how the arts of a word or sentence fit together
and roduce their /oint effect# &t the other e$treme, we can give u on grammar and
guess the meaning# This is what most of us do with sentences such as this( o head!
wound is too trivial to be ignored
"
# This aarently simle sentence is remar+ably
hard to understand, as you will confirm by considering its oosite( o head!wound
is too trivial to be treated# ' would guess that you found this /ust as sensible as the
first, but they cant both be sensible# 'n such cases, we switch off the normal rules of
grammar and rely on common%sense#
Between these two e$tremes are constructions that most of us read but dont
hear, such as the house in which he lives# 'f the goal is simly to e$tract meaning, a
reader can simly ignore the osition of in7 but a reader who finds synta$ interesing
will ause and absorb the syntactic detail# There is amle evidence that syntactic
+nowledge grows throughout the school years
C
, and that one of the main models *
erhas the main model * for young writers is the material that they read# <oreover it
is clear from errors such as the house in which he lives in that novices struggle to
understand sohisticated constructions7 so the more attention they ay to the
sentences they read, the more effectively they will learn to use such constructions
themselves# But aying attention to synta$ is a waste of time if the only aim is to
e$tract meaning# !ome children are natural noticers, but many are not7 and 5so the
argument goes6 it is for the second +ind of child that grammar teaching is articularly
imortant# ,f course the grammar teaching for writing may focus on articular
B
Ahiere ;33=
>
Deith 0111
2
Wason and )eich 0121
C
9erera 01C?, Hudson ;331
constructions, such as in which, which children need to learn, but there is simly too
much grammatical detail to teach it all in classroom time, so the best strategy is to
rovide a general tool which will allow children to learn from their reading#
,ne articularly imortant +ind of reading where grammatical analysis is
esecially helful is the reading of literature * stories, novels, oems and so on#
.iterary wor+s that are read in class are, by definition, well written, so they serve as
an e$cellent model for linguistic novices# &nd indeed, one of the main arguments for
lin+ing literature to language%teaching in "nglish is that children will become better
writers through reading literature# &s we all +now, mere e$osure wor+s for some
children, but not for all, and maybe those for whom it does wor+ are those who are
naturally inclined to notice the grammar and vocabulary of what they read# 'f so,
then small amounts of carefully focused grammatical analysis may hel the others to
notice, and learn# ' give an e$amle in section "rror( )eference source not found of
this +ind of analysis#
5.3 Speaking and listening
&lthough grammar is historically associated with the written language * after all, in
@ree+ gramma meant letter * it is highly relevant to the so+en language as well
because this is the source of written language# !o+en language, including the most
sontaneous and casual conversational styles, is controlled by much the same
grammatical rules as the most formal writing, even if real%time roduction allows
slis of the tongue and disfluencies that would be edited out in writing# & sentence
such as I love you comes out the same whether written or so+en, and has different
synta$ from its e-uivalent in other languages such as French #e taime, .atin Te amo
or &rabic $hibbik#
,ne of the very ositive recent changes in our school curriculum is the much
higher rofile that we now give to the so+en language in both first%language "nglish
and foreign languages# @rammatical analysis has an imortant contribution to ma+e in
teaching about so+en language# ' consider here first%language "nglish, leaving
foreign languages till the ne$t subsection, and distinguish three different +inds of
contribution( transcrition, status%raising and detail#
Transcrition of so+en language is an imortant e$ercise for any child
1
# 't is
easy to record conversation, and given a recording, any child can transcribe it7 and of
course if that child haens to be a articiant in the conversation, so much the more
interesting for them# ,ne of the lessons that emerges from this activity is that any
transcrition goes well beyond the urely honetic substance of the recording# The
transcriber ma+es decisions about words 5e#g# wait or weight?6 and about grammatical
structures 5e#g# fun and games or fun in games?6, so a transcrition is, in effect, a
grammatical analysis# This is articularly true if the transcrition includes
unctuation, since this forces decisions about sentence%boundaries and other ma/or
structural distinctions# Discussing these decisions in class is a useful way of
sharening uils awareness of grammatical structure, but 5of course6 it resuoses
a shared framewor+ of ideas and terminology * recisely what grammar teaching
rovides#
!tatus%raising is articularly imortant for the large ma/ority of children *
robably about C3%13E
03
* who natively sea+ a non%standard variety of "nglish#
Than+s to the very negative attitudes to non%standard forms 5described variously as
1
For guidance, see the website roduced for BT by Fulie Bla+e and Tim !hortis at
htt(GGwww#btlc#comG)esonsiblebusinessG!uortingourcommunitiesG.earningands+illsGFreeresource
sG&llTal+Gdefault#as$?sHcidIconHF8).Halltal+
wrong, careless or bad6, schools traditionally left non%standard sea+ers with
-uite unnecessarily negative feelings about how they so+e, described by some as
linguistic self%hatred
00
# "ven if schools aim to teach everyone to sea+ !tandard
"nglish when needed, there is no reason why this should not co%e$ist with the local
non%standard dialect in children who are essentially bi%dialectal# The challenge is to
ma+e sure that children feel as roud of their local variety as they are of !tandard
"nglish, and the best contribution that schools can ma+e is to treat them as different
but e-ual# 'n the case of grammatical analysis, this means ob/ective comarison(
comaring them as e-uals, without imlying that in some sense the local non%standard
is a oor coy of !tandard "nglish# For e$amle, if the local dialect uses was after we
as well as after he, it is different from !tandard "nglish, but none the worse for it *
indeeed, the lac+ of a contrast in the ast tense brings the verb to be in line with all the
other verbs, so the local dialect is more regular than !tandard "nglish#
The idea that grammar teaching might raise the status of non%standard dialects
deserves a little more discussion# ,ne argument that heled to remove grammar from
the curriculum was that teaching !tandard "nglish was inherently rescritive,
rescribing the forms of !tandard "nglish and roscribing non%standard forms# 'n
rescritive grammar, we were and those books are correct, and we was and them
books are simly wrong# 'f this +ind of grammar teaching ma+es uils feel bad, not
only as sea+ers but as eole, then erhas all grammar teaching should cease
0;
# The
aroach that ' am suggesting reverses this argument( grammatical analysis can be
urely descritive 5free of value /udgements6, so it can be alied as easily to non%
standard dialects as to !tandard "nglish and thereby raise the status of the former#
Detail is my name for the fine linguistic details that children need to +now
when sea+ing and listening# These details include the features that distinguish the
local non%standard from !tandard "nglish, but go well beyond them to include any
atterns that are found in more formal or secialised discourse# <any of these are
simly carried over from formal writing, but some are not( more formal ways of
greeting eole 5e#g# good morning6 and addressing them 5e#g# sir6, ways of
structuring discourse 5e#g# by the way6 and e$ressing degrees of certainty 5e#g# didnt
she?6, and so on# @rammatical analysis can hel children to broaden their range of
constructions in sea+ing in /ust the same way as in writing( careful study of recorded
seech not only reveals the new atterns in that samle, but also hels children to
notice new atterns in all their listening# Fust as in writing, they have a myriad fine
details to learn before they count as mature cometent sea+ers who can function
comfortably in a wide range of social settings#
However, it is imortant to recognise the lac+ of relevant research evidence
here as to how, or even whether, schools can hel# 't is easy to muster theoretical
arguments for or against the use of grammatical analysis as a tool for e$anding
childrens reertoire of linguistic atterns for use in sea+ing# 'n its favour, it offers a
lausible way to hel children to hel themselves by learning from e$erience, which
is at least more romising than trying to teach all the details directly at school 5given
the constraints not only time but also on our collective +nowledge of what needs to be
taught6# ,n the negative side, however, we simly dont +now whether it wor+s *
whether a grammatical analysis of a recording, done in class, roduces s+ills that
03
!ee 9eter Trudgill( !tandard "nglish * what it isnt, at
htt(GGwww#hon#ucl#ac#u+GhomeGdic+Gstandard#htm
00
<acaulay 012B
0;
Trudgill 012B
transfer to ordinary seech# The best ' can say is that the idea is lausible, but needs
research#
5.4 Foreign languages
8ntil the 01>3s, the dominant method for teaching foreign languages combined
e$licit grammatical rules with translation e$ercises, so it is now called the grammar%
translation method# This obviously resuosed that uils already +new a
substantial amount of grammar 5both concets and terminology6, building on the
foundations laid in the "nglish classroom# The method had serious wea+nesses, not
least that it treated living languages in the same way as the dead languages, .atin and
@ree+, for which it was originally devised, so ordinary conversational s+ills were low
on the agenda# The roblems multilied when grammar disaeared from "nglish
teaching, so grammar 5and translation6 fell out of favour, to be relaced 5eventually6
by communicative methods based on the rather odd idea that learning a foreign
language in a classroom should follow the same attern as learning ones first
language at home# The argument 5encouraged by the fashionable linguistic theory that
language is innate6 ran that since small children learned their first language without
the hel of grammar, the same would be true for older children learning foreign
languages at school
0=
#
This claim has been e$lored intensively by researchers, and refuted
0?
# The
research shows that grammatical rules should be taught e$licitly, using what is called
form%focussed instruction, rather than left imlicit in the hoe that learners will
figure them out for themselves# Fust as in first%language "nglish, e$licit grammatical
analysis encourages both noticing and understanding(
Why is metalinguistic activity Jincluding grammatical analysisK on the art of
learners aarently so valuable? ,ne reason can be found in JtheK claim that
while awareness at the level of noticing is necessary for learning, awareness at
the level of understanding will foster deeer and more raid learning#
0B

This does not, of course, mean that grammar is all we need, and it is certainly not a
reason to turn the cloc+ bac+ to the 01B3s# We also +now that learners need high%
-uality inut and high%-uality interactive ractice in order to turn this e$licit
+nowledge into the imlicit +nowledge that counts as s+ill in using a foreign
language# But it does mean that grammar can and should lay a much larger art in
foreign%language teaching than it does currently#
5.5 Thinking
,ne of the traditional arguments for teaching grammar was that it was good mind%
training for the elite# & degree in the classics, with the grammars of @ree+ and .atin
as a ma/or comonent, used to be considered an e$cellent training for the higher ran+s
of the civil service# This argument is still /ust as valid as it used to be, e$cet that we
can now generalise it beyond the academic elite# !ome e$erience of grammatical
analysis is robably good for any mind, so long as it is itched at the right level#
8nfortunately there is very little research evidence to suort these claims, but
e-ually there is no evidence against them#
@rammatical analysis is very similar to mathematics in terms of the mental
demands that it ma+es# 'n both cases the learner has to learn a tightly%interconnected
set of concets such as( noun, sub/ect, ob/ect, verb, modifier, ad/ective7 these concets
0=
Drashen 01C;
0?
4orris and ,rtega ;333, !ada and Tomita ;303
0B
"llis ;33C(?B;#
all hel to define one another through statements such as L& verbs sub/ect is a nounM,
L& noun may function either as a verbs sub/ect or as its ob/ectM and L& noun may be
modified by an ad/ectiveM# 'n both cases the +ey concets are relations between
entities rather than simle entities 5e#g# s-uared rather than B in mathematics, and
sub/ect rather than noun in grammar6# &nd in both cases it is essential to be able to
aly the analytical system to concrete e$amles, referably e$amles from real life7
so /ust as the mathematician thin+s mathematically about some scenario, the
grammarian thin+s grammatically about a sentence or some other +ind of te$t#
<oreover, both mathematics and grammar may be -uite abstract, so
mathematicians consider the roerties of the 5non%e$istent6 s-uare root of minus 0,
while grammarians consider those of the missing sub/ect in a sentence li+e %ome
here& &s in mathematics, a grammatical conclusion may lie at the end of a long chain
of arguments and assumtions, so grammatical reasoning can be very challenging7
and any ste in the argument may be challenged on either theoretical or factual
grounds# The glory of both sub/ects is that it is ossible * in fact, very easy * to be
wrong, and to be shown to be wrong#
@rammar, then, shares with mathematics the fact that it is a comle$, abstract
system that can aly to concrete ieces of real or imaginary e$erience, and both the
system itself, and its alication to a concrete e$erience, are sub/ect to rational
debate# The most obvious difference between the two sub/ects is that mathematics is
taught at school, but grammar isnt# Both sub/ects can be difficult to gras and to
teach, so both need teaching methods tailored very carefully to the needs and abilities
of the learners# But nobody would argue that mathematics might be droed from the
curriculum because of these difficulties or because some learners may not
immediately see their relevance# 'f we can find ways to teach mathematics to all, why
not grammar?
'ndeed, grammar arguably has an even better claim than mathematics on time
in the school timetable# &fter all, grammar is about the basic organisation of language,
and language is our main tool for thin+ing and learning# @rammar isnt an abstract
9latonic system li+e mathematics that e$ists out there7 its art of our minds, the
roduct of thousands of hours sent, during childhood, listening to eole round us
tal+ing# "nglish grammar is different, in fundamental ways, from French grammar
and Ahinese grammar# 't forces us to ma+e distinctions, hundreds of times a day, that
French doesnt force at all * e#g# the difference between it rained and it was raining *
and vice versa * e#g# the difference between tu and vous, or between voisin and
voisine 5meaning neighbour, male or female6# !ome things are much easier to
e$ress in one language than in another, such as different degrees and +inds of
uncertainty7 and the associations embedded in two different languages may be -uite
different 5e#g# cycling is associated by the "nglish verb to ride with horse%riding, but
by the @erman verb fahren with driving a car6#
This is not to say that our language loc+s us into an intellectual rison from
which we cant escae
0>
7 on the contrary, language is only one source of influence on
our minds# &nother source is, as we all hoe, education# Ta+e the distinction which
"nglish forces on us between humans and everything else by ma+ing us choose
between the interrogative ronouns who and what# 'f you as+ me( What broke the
0>
This idea of language as an intellectual rison is the strong version of the !air%Whorf Hyothesis,
named after the two &merican linguists who most famously e$ressed it# <ost linguists and
sychologists re/ect the strong version 59in+er 011?6, though it survives in some versions of 9ost%
modernism# However, a wea+ version of the Hyothesis, in which language is a ma/or influence on
thin+ing, though not the only one and not necessarily on all areas of thin+ing, is widely acceted
.evinson ;33=#
window?, ' could rely The wind, $ falling slate or $ bird, but not #ohn * or at least,
not without some comment# 'n contrast, if you as+( Who broke the window?, ' could
blame Fohn but not the wind# This distinction lums living creatures such as birds
together with inanimate things such as the wind and a iece of stone, in contrast with
humans# But we all +now * than+s to education * that this classification obscures a lot
of similarities between humans and other living creatures, and a lot of differences
between either and non%living things li+e stones and the wind# & more scientific
classification would cut the ca+e very differently, so we have two very different
ontologies 5ways of classifying things6 to choose between, one basically driven by
language and the other by education and science# However worrying this may seem, it
doesnt seem to be a roblem, as every adult lives with both ontologies, and alies
them on different occasions as needed# But this double%thin+ing is something we
should all be aware of, and where would we learn about it other than in grammatical
analysis of "nglish?
Thin+ing goes beyond mere classification, and the most imortant -uestions
are those concerned with how things 5or eole6 are related to one another# 's this an
e$amle of that? Does this cause that? 's this an alternative to that? Did this haen
after that? The more abstract and comlicated the reasoning, the more li+ely it is to
deend on language7 and if we want to share it with someone else, we need a
symbolic medium such as a technical diagramming system, or ordinary language#
!een from this ersective, it is essential for all of us, however academic or non%
academic we may be, to understand this basic tool, so that we are in command of the
tool, and not the other way round# &nd in articular, it is the general atterns of
grammar rather than the minutiae of vocabulary that we need to understand because
the general atterns are not only more general, but also harder to be aware of#
Fortunately ' can finish this rather seculative section with some concrete
evidence that doing grammar uses high%level thin+ing s+ills# The evidence comes,
once again, from the .inguistics ,lymiad in which children as young as 0; years old
struggle to understand how some unfamiliar language wor+s, with grammar
underlying most of the -uestions# ' argued earlier that grammar re-uires very similar
mental s+ills to mathematics, and this claim is confirmed by the fact that most of
those who do best in our cometition are also studying mathematics7 indeed, some of
the chamions in the 'nternational .inguistics ,lymiad are also chamions at the
'nternational <athematics ,lymiad#
The ne$t section will e$lain what it is in grammatical analysis that gives it this
hard, mathematical challenge# However, ' shall also e$lain why it is also a soft,
humanistic and ersonal challenge, so that it combines the best of the two very
different worlds of mathematics and literature#
Back to Becoming a grammar teacher.