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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:22 am Post subject: |
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| ChopChaeJoe wrote: |
| If I were a hammer |
I think it's "If I had a hammer..."
One reason why we should teach the subjunctive accurately, even if it is used only irregularly in many people's speech, if at all, is that it remains standard for testing purposes. (It also remains one of the standards by which one is judged as educated or not in certain social circles.) We do our students, who need to get better scores on tests for entry to university, promotions, and other socially sanctioned rewards, a disservice if we do not teach them this. We may call for tests that better represent the language as spoken, but this particular issue is unlikely to be changed soon because it does represent a piece of knowledge that has high social value.
Further grammatical note to reinforce my rant on another thread:
When I first wrote the opening sentence to this post, I wrote "I thought it's "If I had a hammer."
My use of past tense indicated distance from the myself as speaker and was intended to make my challenge more uncertain (and thus, more polite). Note that it has nothing to do with time. (I switched because, as an old folk fan, I'm confident in my knowledge of the song, not to diss the person who posted, although I know that writing this makes it appear that way.) I also think that this kind of phenomenon is just interesting, and ought to be of interest to anyone engaged in teaching a language. But these aspects of grammar are little known to teachers, and thus get little taught to learners. |
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ChopChaeJoe
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:40 am Post subject: |
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This whole idea of students who score well on tests is retarded.
None of these kids can speak English!
They need to be taught to speak English!
Is that so wrong? |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:58 am Post subject: |
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| ChopChaeJoe wrote: |
This whole idea of students who score well on tests is retarded.
None of these kids can speak English!
They need to be taught to speak English!
Is that so wrong? |
No, the value of scoring well on the tests is called reality. Failure to acknowledge the existence of these tests and what rewards are associated with them is disingenuous on our part.
And it is likely that many of those kids who do score better on the exams are also the better speakers of the language as well. The assumption that sccoring well on the test means that one cannot speak the language is false. We should also accept that it does not necessarily mean that they can.
Tests such as the TOEFL and TOEIC are changing to include speaking portions, required for the TOEFL and optional in Korea for the TOEIC. As these come into more common use, there should be increasing pressure for instruction to include speaking.
However, it remains the case that these tests will be looking for a standard variety of English even in speech (for academic and business purposes, that is what is valued) and this may include the subjunctive. Teaching students informal use because they want it and because it serves purposes like friendly engagement with others is a good thing, but we should also be able to teach them the formal varieties that will be measured on the test.
A very real question in this regard is to what extent the current teaching population will be up to the job. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2006 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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The way I teach the 2nd Conditional is to tell the students that the 'if' clause has a past tense verb--which is the signal that the situation is not true/unreal/impossible.
If I had a million dollars, I would (might, could...)
If I were rich, I would (might, could...)
The activity that we use in class is fun. I make an 'if' stem clause on the board and ask a student to complete the sentence using one of the modals...
"If I were a movie star,... I would be rich and famous."
Then I re-write it as "If I were rich and famous," below the first sentence and ask another student to complete that clause.
"If I were rich and famous, beautiful women would fall in love with me."
And repeat the process...
"If beautiful women fell in love with me, my wife would become very jealous."
"If my wife became very jealous..."
Over the next few weeks have students review the structure by giving small groups different 'if' clauses to get them started, and let the groups go round and round and then let them compare some of their example sentences. |
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