Job Discussion Forums

Agamemnon · Joined: 24 Jun 2014 Posts: 34

Well guys, just looks like we will have to agree to disagree!
Never mind was fun while it lasted, don't think this thread would have gone on much longer anyway, most people(real ones that is) find the whole grammar thing really boring.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:40 pm Post subject:

Believe it or not, I don't like grammar THAT much. I'd like to prune away a good half or more of it and cut it down to size, but unfortunately people seem rather attached to a larger rather than smaller inventory of terms n concepts (hard won gains and all that, and perhaps they feel the larger will have more explanatory power). So I do understand the boredom thing, Ag.

Sashadroogie · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 4:56 pm Post subject:

I'm sure Clytemnestra and Aegisthus would provide much more diversion for this steadfast son of Atreus.

Just out of curiosity, how have you fared with learning Turkish, Agamemnon?

johnslat · Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:29 pm Post subject:

But . . .but . . . I don't want to be a fake person. Sob Sad

Regards,
Pseudo John

Sashadroogie · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:20 am Post subject:

Dear Johnslat

Sorry, but your grammatical range and accuracy condemn you to a life of artificiality in the eyes of the steadfast one. But on the other hand, in the eyes of those who have not spent however many decades in front of the unteachables of eastern Thrace you are definitely as genuine an article as distilled vodka!

That should restore your faith : )

With Communist greetings

Sasha

joelackey92 · Joined: 28 Feb 2012 Posts: 18 Location: Arkansas, y'all.

In the second example given for the third point in the first link, titled "Verb problems," the writer ironically made a mistake, stating, "The fish lay on the counter, fileted and ready to broil." Who knew fish could lay something down? I sure didn't. What's even more ironic is that his previous example given was over the confusion between "lie" and "lay."

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 2:27 am Post subject:

buravirgil · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 1:50 pm Post subject:

My college courses (late 80s) emphasized syntax-- beginning with Chomsky to end with Krashen. I was taught to distinguish the term usage from grammar in a frame of rules relating to comprehension. Morphology rarely annihilates the meaning of an utterance, whereas subject-verb inversion can reverse meaning.

Prescriptive and descriptive "grammars" reduced the term rule to merely pattern and aided discussions about meaning and communicative competence and their relationship to culture, such as Joos' The Five Clocks (about register). Textual linguistics was fascinating and the explosion of technologically driven platforms for communication has made the science of it closer to trade secret. Discussing language in terms of mode and intended code and crossing into semiotics and its models is but still all about meaning and comprehension, or successful conveyance.

As it all applied to EsL methodology, or technique, the primary lesson was you can take it all apart, but it all works together. No single emphasis accomplishes proficiency. Without that background, I've come to accept most teachers conflate the terms grammar and usage, but I know the distinctions to be very real when I observe them (and myself for that matter) work with learners as a teacher defers and accepts an effort.

I like to say the the dual objectives of transference and assessment are deliciously flawed. I first thought along those lines marveling at the convention of clozure-- that it was heavily used in instruction as well as evaluation. The presentation of meaning as discrete blocks and kicking away only a few in the beginning, but progressively more until what is presented might all but disappear.