Monday, April 14, 2008
Amy Mckenzie's New Thread
One of my high school English teachers told me that it was pointless for teachers to teach their students pure grammar. She believed that doing so was a waste of time because students may be able to fill out worksheets but the next day they would not be able to apply what they had learned in their writing. At the time I thought she was right but now that I am writing a lot more papers, I wish I knew more about grammar and think that it would be helpful. What do you think?
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18 comments:
I think that it all depends on what you are going to be doing with your education. I do not believe in this idea of “well rounded” students. There are many things that we are forced to learn at universities that have no real world value. That being said, grammar is important, to a certain extent. Everyone should be able to write proficiently. Everyone should be able to speak both intelligently and intelligibly. They do not necessarily have to be able to explain the grammar. Everyone needs to be able to construct a sentence with a perfect passive participle. Not everyone needs to be able to teach you what one is. If you plan to write extensively or teach grammar you need further instruction in grammar rule. Everyone needs to be able to write and speak proficiently. Not everyone needs to be able to teach grammar.
Bryan Norbut
I believe that grammar is extremely important and learning about grammar is easy as long as you have a good instructor. All through grade school I was lost when it came to grammar, in high school it was the same, but when I came to college the book we used was so easy to understand the light bulb went off. I believe that if teachers taught students with college level books and taught through their papers and assignments then it would be easy for children to learn grammar. A good understanding of grammar will do one good in life because most often a person will have to write some letter, a speech, or even a paper for review which will need to have proper grammar.
I wish I would have focused on grammar more in high school. I agree that worksheets get repititous but overall, grammar is really important for everyone and it's a key part for what I am going into. I often feel like I should be better at it and it would have helped a great deal to go over it more in high school. We only went over grammar lessons freshman year. As an english teacher, I plan on going over grammar with my students.
I think grammar should be taught everyday in an English class. I am not saying teach grammar the entire time, but a 5 to 10 minute Daily Edit would benefit students. When I was in grade school and in some of my high school courses, I did Daily Edits and it does help sharpen grammar skills. Grammar deals with writing, reading, and speaking, which are essential in society. I know when I become a teacher, grammar will be taught everyday in my classroom.
Formal grammar is an absolutely crucial component of learning refined English. By refined, I mean that you are familiar enough with English that you can have a conversation without any difficulty, etc. This is usually the case only for native English speakers or those who have lived in an English-speaking country for a significant amount of time. If a person expects to conduct business or write in English, he/she will be infinitely more successful using proper grammar.
Teaching grammar is extremely important because students will need to know proper English and grammar when they are writing formal papers later on. I really wish that grammar would have been a more prominent part of my education because writing would be so much easier.
While learning about grammar can be quite annoying, it is necessary to write good papers and just use good everyday language! I've watched channels such as CNN and MSNBC and have seen errors in grammar on the ticker tape which is ridiculous!!! Grammar is really important to development of the things that we write and the way our minds process sentences and words.
I agree with your teacher because my high school English teacher tried to teach pure grammar and not only was I not able to apply everything into writing, not much stuck with me. Teachers should try their best to have students write and teach them how to fix their grammar while writing, teachers shoudn't try to have the students fill out worksheets.
While I think that grammar is important to learn, I do not believe that students (or anyone) for that matter will learn EVERYTHING about grammar, no matter how hard a teacher tries. Rather, students should learn what they need to learn to be successful in the real world. By taking a practical approach, I believe students will benefit more in the classroom.
I believe that every person should be required to learn pure grammar because no matter what you do in life it is alway good to be able speak properly and write properly. I think it was wrong for the teacher to tell students it was pointless to learn grammar. Teachers should never say that learning is pointless at all no matter what they are learning. Personally, I wish I had the opportunity to learn grammar more. My teachers seemed to skim over it briefly. Grammar is very important to everyone no matter what they plan to do with their life.
I believe that learning grammar is very important when it comes to English. My high school english teacher had us write papers every week and it greatly improved my writing.
It is extremely important for students to know and understand proper grammar. In order for students to speak and write in proper grammar, this is important. Grammar is such an important aspect of education and is often overlooked.
I have had a teacher who solely attempted to teach her student's grammar in order to improve testing scores. While my ACT English score benefited greatly from this, I was unable to retain much of what I had learned. However, another teacher taught grammar, but it was grammar that we had to adapt into our everyday writing. We learned the rules because the grades of our papers depended on it. I believe this is a much more effective way to teach students grammar, plus it incorporates adaption of knowledge which is what education should be about.
I don't know. I strongly believe in a world where everyone speaks perfectly. I can't help myself. However, at the same time, I see where sometimes, it's just not necessary for people to know all the rules. It really just depends on the student.
Grammar absolutely should be a main concern to English teachers. Grammar should be taught at all levels of grammar school. By the time you hit college though, you should be able to write just fine. Not everyone needs to know every single form of syntax and know how to diagram every single word in compound sentences, but students need to know all the basics.
I feel that it depends on the teacher and the student. If a teacher can consistently give a student back a paper with written comments, then it is pointless to teach grammar. It becomes pointless because students will recognize that there is a problem and fix it based on the comments. If the student reads teacher commentary on papers, then the student is making a conscious effort to make changes in their writing. I think that it is not essential to teach grammar, but again it never hurts.
I think that certain teachers or certain classes require perfection of grammar and syntax in their papers. I think knowledge of grammar is applied more at higher education levels and becomes essential when it comes to trying to explain or express a topic so that it is understandable. Some students need more help with grammar while others do not...
Grammar is important to clear communication. The teaching of grammar will produce students who are able to clearly express themselves, which is helpful in any field of study. Maybe the teacher you speak of had a bad experience with grammar in school. It sounds like maybe they had a teacher that just gave them worksheet and did no explaining. But maybe that's reading too into things.
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