21 Nov
2012
21 Nov
'12
4:13 a.m.
Jason White wrote:
So primary school children won't be quizzed about
common nouns, proper nouns,
abstract nouns, collective nouns, etc.?
AFAIK the last generation to be formally taught grammar (as in, this
part of a sentence is called X and here is how to recognize and use
it) was my grandparents' -- people a couple of years too young to be
trucked off to WWII.
IMO it is a vital tool for studying foreign languages.
It wasn't exciting; nor was it particularly
useful. I learned more
about grammar by studying a second language than I did in English
class. That's probably because it wasn't taught either very well or
very systematically.
Precisely. Unfortunately trends in foreign language education (last
time I looked) also shied away from grammar. It's all about being
slapped with sentences without explanation and hoping you can guess
the rules yourself.
When my Mum was studying French recently, she had a book called
something like "English grammar for French students", i.e. teaching
anglophones to recognize parts of speech in *English* first, so they
can then do so in while studying French. I remarked quite grumpily
that she ought to have learnt that in school.