Job Discussion Forums

[thelmadatter]

OK, Im lazy... I figure its easier to ask here than to comb through my grammar references My initial quick search turned up nothing. Its probably in a footnote somewhere!

Im teaching clause structure (dependent and independent) with the goal of preventing run-on sentences for my native Spanish-speaking students. I identify coordinating conjuctions, subordinating conjunctions and transitions. However, one of my students asks me about the following constructions.

John was late, which is why the boss fired him.
John was late. That is why the boss fired him.

OK - the student stumped the teacher (gotta love the smart ones!)

"...,which is why..." is not a coordinating conjunction (despite the comma before it). It is not a subordinating conjunction that I know about. It is not a transition because it doesnt require a semi-colon to conjoin the two clauses. "That is why ..." might be a transition.

"..., which is why ..." is covered in the text for another class, but it is called an adjective clause (?????)! I need to include it into my handouts, but I don't know what to call it. I'd hate to call it something like "a weird construction that doesn't fit the other categories" Might seem a bit daft. (I love that word.)

[Roger]

Would it help you if I called that "...which is..." part a "relative clause"?

[dyak]

[Gordon]

[High Plains Drifter]

[dyak]

[thelmadatter]

HPD - interesting explanation I can see now why Focus on Grammar Advanced calls the ..., which is why... construction an adjective clause ... "which" is a relative pronoun.

I agree that HPD was a bit condescending to dyak, but dyak, grammar is not useless. My students wonder why a sentence like "John was late, that is why he was fired." is a run-on sentence. After all, that is pretty much what they do in Spanish. Of course, part of the problem is that "that" as a relative pronoun ("que" in Spanish) and "that" as a full pronoun ("este/esta/esto" in Spanish) are homonyms.

Run-on sentences are a problem, and to avoid them, they need to know what independent and dependent clauses are. I teach that generally traditional English academic composition prefers one independent clause with 1-2 dependent clauses (if a sentence is going to have more than one clause, of course). Once they know what independent/dependent clauses are, the rule is fairly simple and straightforward.

[dyak]

[moonraven]

Grammar is not useless to treat, but the very fact that so much confusion erupted on this thread in regard to an adjective clause which describes why being late was problamatic indicates that probably students would find an immersion in a controversy of this sort to be extremely boring--and therefore not productive from a learning standpoint.

[High Plains Drifter]

Yes, dyak, I guess I was a bit patronising, and I apologise. I agree that it isn't productive to overload students with grammar--we're teaching them to speak English, not be English teachers--but I still feel that anyone claiming to be an English teacher should have a good knowledge of the fundamentals of English grammar. Is that really such a crazy idea? One of the reasons it's so hard to make a living in this field and one of the reasons we're not taken seriously by other academics is that there are so many backpackers and six-week wonders calling themselves teachers who use the "grammar doesn't matter" attitude to hide the fact that they don't know anything about grammar.

How much you discuss grammar, especially fine points such as we're discussing here, depends on who your students are and their level. I wouldn't normally expect to explain something like this in the classroom, unless I were asked, but you have to be prepared when good students ask tough questions after class or during office hours. I've taught high level Japanese students who were very interested in grammar and often knew more about it than their teachers. They would have loved a discussion such as this and seen right through any teacher telling them grammar isn't important. Here in Arabia, it's pretty rare to ever get to this level, and rarer still to find students who care about advanced grammar or anything at all, for that matter, other than when the next break is. I couldn't imagine boring my students here with a grammar discussion of this sort. At Monterrey Tec, where I gather thelmadatter works and I once worked, this is something that might come up in an advanced class, perhaps a TOEFL preparation class.

[moonraven]

Adjective clauses and relative pronouns are generally covered in most TOEFL prep. courses. But you should remember that the grammar section of the exam is focused on identifying errors, not on identifying grammar structures per se. And it does not require even that one correct the errors.

I have always given "points" to students who correct the errors--and sometimes they will want to explain why the change is correct. In most cases they don't.

[juststeven]

Mr. High Plains Drifter,
BRILLIANT!

[kev7161]

I love grammar. I love seeing a complex sentence and enjoying the beauty of it. I've studied grammar when getting my teaching degree. I taught elementary students grammar when I was teaching back home.

Saying all that, teaching anything beyond the "bare bones" of grammar to primary, junior, or senior students in my area seems pointless. Heck, I'm happy if my students can say "she" instead of "he" when they are referring to a female. I'm doing backflips if they can speak a simple sentence or two and I understand them. Yes, we briefly discuss the grammar presented in their text and we do some written exercises for practice (and then we follow up with an exam a bit later). I hope some of the higher-level students can retain what they've learned, but I'm not hopeful for 90% of my kids.

For example: Last unit, we were teaching the use of the word "do" - -

"Do you like California Kenji?"
"Yes, I do. I like it very much!"

On the test:

"____ you like California Kenji?"
"Yes, I _____. I like it very much.

How many of you want to guess the number of my students who wrote the word "like" in the second space? It's a little scary.

So, to wrap this all up; if my SENIOR ONE students can't get the simplicity of "do", I'm afraid they won't grasp such things as relative clauses. Maybe advanced college learners to be sure, but not my little darlings.

[juststeven]

Ah, the 'do' word! Our language is sooo complex, and there are so many ways to say the same thing. In my experience, students are forced to learn too much before they have a solid foundation in the basics.
"You like California, Kenji?'
"Yes, very much".
So what's the problem?

[kev7161]