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Deconstructor
Joined: 30 Dec 2003
Posts: 775
Location: Montreal
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 Posted: Thu Mar 10, 2005 9:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Stephen Jones wrote: |
Decon seems to have got hold of the wrong side of the horse here. There is no need to add any further context to
She is bringing the childen to the park every evening.
The use of the continous aspect is putting the stress on the time period (which is what the continous aspect does) and thus by implication suggesting that the time period is temporary.
The OP considers the phrase to be wrong because she has learned her grammar from the "laundry list" method. This has one entry that states "Present Simple for habitual actions" and another that states "Present Continous for now". It might be the only way of learning L2 grammar, but it at a certain level it creates many more problems than it solves.
Incidnetally, Decon's comment that overemphasis on the grammar point inhibits learning of it, strikes me as very perceptive. If attention can be taken away from the grammar point more and more grammar will sink in. |
Basically there are two meanings to the continuous aspect: continuous action as in I am typing this post and I am taking an English class. The latter suggests an action which could last for months but eventually ends. One cannot say I take an English class without suggesting habitual or almost permanent act. These are subtle differences which, I think, should never be taught to students. All it does is confuse the hell out of them. Let me offer an example:
I am presently teaching an advanced class. My students are extremely well educated professionals. On the first day I gave them the opportunity to discuss a number of issues while I evaluated their fluency and clarity. I found them to be proficient in both. The next class I began to teach grammar as indicated to me by the organization I work for. The grammar point was be supposed to. The more I explained the more confused they became; as intellectuals they desperately tried to rationalize it demanding that language succumb and submit its secrets to them. Left on their own, they were fine and could use be supposed to, but once I brought the grammar point to their attention, all hell broke loose because it was no longer about communication but about understanding on a rational level how this one piece of grammar operates as they plunged themselves from one absurd context into another.
What students and teachers often fail to understand is that even the simplest grammar rules are fundamentally idiomatic; that is, they cannot be completely understood on a rational level. This is the irony because what prevents students from understanding grammar is precisely the rational mind. It deceptively acts as the only medium for understanding grammar, which in fact could only be understood intuitively. This comes only in time and to those who truly immerse themselves in that language.
I think that instead of teaching grammar, an environment must be created where it can, as it were, sneak in, kind of bypassing the rational mind and entering the very space where speaking becomes possible. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 8:48 am Post subject: |
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I suspect the problem with "be supposed to" lies in the way your book presents it. It is much better to present it as a lexeme and tell the students they will need to understand but not to use it in their own speech, unless the context is almost exactly the same as a phrase they have come across.. The rule for L2 is the same for that for HTML. Be catholic in the input and restrictive on the output.
There is one general problem with series of grammar books, and that is that they follow the pattern of the first volume to come out. The layout of that first volume was excellent for the particular level but becomes steadily less appropriate the further away the level of the other books becomes. So "Streamline" is excellent as a beginners book, but the methodology is innaprorpiate for later levels (though the standard of the texts makes it wothwhile considering using it as an additional resource). Headway is pretty neat for pre-intermediate, and surprisingly enough the elementary book is both popular with students and gets good results, but the methodogy of the advanced volumes is seriously flawed, though as a resource book for reading texts it is top-class.
| Quote: |
| Basically there are two meanings to the continuous aspect: continuous action as in I am typing this post and I am taking an English class. The latter suggests an action which could last for months but eventually ends. One cannot say I take an English class without suggesting habitual or almost permanent act. |
Actually, the continous aspect does not imply either either continuous or continual action despite its name. It simply draws attention to the fact that the action has a beginning and an end, or places the utterance in the middle of the action if you prefer. This has various implications. First of all iby drawing attention to the beginning and the end, it is suggesting that it is viewed by the speaker as more temporary than the same action with the Present Simple would be. It also means that when used with a future adverbial as in I'm seeing John tomorrow the action is seen as somehow already in motion, that is to say as already firmly planned. On the other hand the Present Simple form 'take' is the unmarked form. It is simply saying that the action is viewed by the speaker as taking place in non-past time and is not marked for being finished or having a beginning or end.
Now the grammar of the English verb is in fact basically simple, elegant and logical. However the problem is that an explanatory framework that mekes this clear requires a terminology that is not very useful predictively. To put it another way to understand the basics of the English verbal system you need to know which verb forms are used when. But to know this you need a predictive set of rules that are not the same as the rules that actually explain how it happens.
One thing appears to me to be clear. All EFL teachers should ideally have a firm grasp of English syntax (and not the 'laundry list' grammar rules that you get in Swan, Thomson and Martinet, and most other EFL grammars). Secondly this knowledge should be for their own enlightenment. There is no requirement, and often wil be no need, for them to explain it to the students. Indeed the less grammar explanation they give the better. However they should attempt to ensure that none of the rules of thumb that they do give their students actually contradict the overall explanation.
It does seem to me that there are two problems with miuch grammar EFL teaching.
Most EFL teachers have an inadequate or outdated understanding of English grammar, particularly the verb system.
Most of those same teachers give students too many grammatical explanations, some of which produce more problems in the future than they do in the present.
This goes against what should be the ideal system where
The EFL teacher has as thorough, accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of the English Grammar system as possible
He gives as few explicit grammar rules and explanations to his students as he can get away with.
Will's comment that all the local teachers in his school consider only 'brings' to be right is the result of their having been taught the predicitive 'laundry list' set of rules when they were learning English (the one that says the Present Simple is used for habitual action and the continous for action ocurring at the time of speaking) and have never been given the overarching explanation they would have been able to understand once they had gained a certain mastery of English.
Incidentally Guy, if you haven't read it yet. get Lewis's [i]The English Verb[/] published by Heinle. I believe he takes his arguments too far but it is excellent for taking apart many of the shibboleths of English grammar teaching. And for tenses there is a short abtsract ( six or seven pages) by Gabrielatos, the URL of which I have forgotten, but which I can send you if you PM me an email address. |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Fri Mar 11, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject: |
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| I have been teaching grammar inductively, rather than deductively, for 10 years. It works. |
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