I am still VERY sick, so a short entry tonight. I went to a seminar today about teaching grammar. It was very interesting. Basically we have several studies over the past 40-50 years that show how we taught and/or still teach grammar is completely useless and in fact, DECREASES the knowledge the students had when they came into our classes. Of course this might explain why tenth grade students still act like no one has ever explained a noun before.
The first study was published in 1967. Four years before I was BORN??? (yeah, I know I just dated myself). Why then was I taught grammar in a drill and kill method? Why did I still not understand grammar until college and then only because someone made it make sense to me?
I don't know. Why then do teachers still fight so hard FOR this same ineffective method? I best people sat in this seminar and will be diagramming sentences on the board tomorrow. How do we get people to change? I don't have any answers today. I know that my methods have changed since I started teaching. I know I have found things that work and moved toward newer ideas, but I still resist change myself.
My goal for this week is to try this new method of teaching grammar. I was happy that at least some of what I am doing was part of what has been shown to work. If you're curious about the seminar, the website for our speaker was www.writeguy.net
We all need to make an effort to not be so stubborn and realize that good ideas can be new ones, too, not just the oldy but goodys.
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