Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

Apart from Spiral's points, I think one of the most important reasons to teach grammar explicitly to native speakers of English is to equip them to learn a foreign language. I still remember my Latin teacher patiently explaining what verbs and nouns were to thickos who were never going to get very far with declensions or conjugations. However, for other students this basic foundation was to serve them well when they tackled seriously 'grammarised' languages like Turkish or Russian, where there seems to be just no way around getting stuck into massive grammar tomes.

[VladJR87]

[spiral78]

I think one of the most important reasons to teach grammar explicitly to native speakers of English is to equip them to learn a foreign language.

Shamefully, in much of the US system, this wasn't a goal either. Foreign languages were given barely a thought in many (maybe most) high schools for years...Sure, you COULD put yourself out to take French or Spanish or Latin, but I think many high schools really didn't care much about this except for the minimum required to enter university or college.

It seems to me that Canadian and UK schools took foreign language instruction more seriously. This may now be changing in the US as well, as Spanish becomes more and more prevalent in real life. A change for the better, I'd say, if so.

[mozzar]

[spiral78]

Well, no. It's completely different. If you don't have maths lessons then you are very unlikely to be able to do any maths. If you don't have specific English grammar lessons, you can still speak and write the language extremely well.

Yeah, I take your point, though I come from regions of the US where simply being a native speaker definitely doesn't guarantee that one can 'speak and write the language extremely well.' I think to reach the 'extremely well' category requires special training.

[Sashadroogie]

Massive hic\!