Diagramming for Japanese students.

geordie · Post by **geordie** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 2:25 am

I have been teaching in Japan for eleven years and love the work but progress is painfully slow and I have used probably every textbook and approach known to man and beast.
After a M.Ed(TESOL) I became enthused with some aspects of Systemic Functional Linguistics and have had some interesting and possibly rewarding results in this area. Now - to a pet subject of mine - I really like Kellogg Reed diagrams and think they could be helpful to my students and would like to post a couple of diagrams on this site for discussion if possible - is it possible to mount a diagram on the forum?? I know many people think these diagrams are old-fashioned but they can be so valuable in giving a picture of the structure of grammar. (Japanese students have formal grammar of the type S V O thrashed into them in school).
Jack

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 3:04 am

You could pinch some examples from http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/ ... frames.htm

or post your own image files on a free webserver and link to them with the [Img] tags.

geordie · Post by **geordie** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 11:13 am

Dear Ouyan,
Many thanks for your reply.
I prepared an interesting Kellogg Reed diagram and scanned it and then tried to paste it to Dave's forum. - to get your response. No good!
Would you be so kind as to walk me through pasting a diagram to the forum. I have discovered SenDraw software so I can successfully create a diagram and then scan it. I'm not as young as I used to be and this new fangled internet is very testing!
Regards,
Jack

(I also prepared a SFL diagram for comment)

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Sat Dec 13, 2008 2:45 pm

You need to upload your image files to a free webserver, like http://photobucket.com/. You must create an account to use the free service. Point at your image after you upload it and a little menu appears below it with Img Code and HTML Code options . You want the Img Code. The HTML code will be in the <img src=URL> format. You just need the URL part.

To place an image in a post, click the "Img" button, and an

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 3:39 am

geordie wrote:I have been teaching in Japan for eleven years and love the work but progress is painfully slow and I have used probably every textbook and approach known to man and beast.
After a M.Ed(TESOL) I became enthused with some aspects of Systemic Functional Linguistics and have had some interesting and possibly rewarding results in this area. Now - to a pet subject of mine - I really like Kellogg Reed diagrams and think they could be helpful to my students and would like to post a couple of diagrams on this site for discussion if possible - is it possible to mount a diagram on the forum?? I know many people think these diagrams are old-fashioned but they can be so valuable in giving a picture of the structure of grammar. (Japanese students have formal grammar of the type S V O thrashed into them in school).
Jack

I remember my sixth-grade teacher having us diagram several sentences on our own as an assignment. Not that I like assignments much, but I thought the whole idea of diagramming sentences, to visually comprehend grammar, was really interesting and fun.

And I think it wouldn't be wasted on your Japanese students. I notice that Japanese have a terrible time speaking English (compared to Chinese people speaking English). Japanese grammar and English grammar are so different; I'm sure this will help many of your more visually oriented students grasp the differences more easily.

Good luck with your endeavours and keep us posted on results, and how students react to the instruction.

geordie · Post by **geordie** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 6:10 am

Dear Jotham,
That is such an encouraging reply. A good point about the visually oriented! I will certainly keep you posted.
Jack

geordie · Post by **geordie** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 7:47 pm

Thanks Ouyang - I managed to post a diagram on this forum using photobucket.

I have been using articles from "Japan Times" , which is by the way an excellent newspaper. I took a headline dealing with the three big automakers and discussed it in class.

Regarding the first 2 diagrams - which of the 2 approaches would you select for Kellog/Reed? adverbial or direct object?

On the 3rd. and 4th. diagrams - any comments on the Systemic Functional Linguistic approach?

[/img]

Any comments - Jack

ouyang · Post by **ouyang** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:04 pm

The question is whether "for" is an immediate constituent of "plead" or "bail-out". Because we can ask, "Are you for the bail-out?", and say "They pleaded their case for the bail-out.", I would say that it is an immediate constituent of "bail-out".

In other words, "for bail-out" is a prepostional phrase that forms an adverb. I would argue that this adverb functions as a complement rather than as a modifier of the verb. It's similar to predicates such as "wait for the bus", "looking for his keys", and "talk about sports".

The word "for" can definitely form a particle in phrases such as "make for" and "stand for". "ESL stands for English as a Second Language". Dave's list of phrasal verbs includes "wait for", but I would disagree with that classification. Some grammars would classify the "for" which follows "plead" and "wait" as a linking preposition.

I think it is interesting that this sort of construction can be classified in two different ways in both the structural and functional approaches to syntax. I would like to see a complete list of all the classifications which are used in the systemic functional approach. Anyone know of a link?

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