Teacher Discussion Forums

Is learning a language made easier by regularising its vocabulary and grammar as much as possible?

For example:

"Dialects using hisself and theirselves are consistently using the possessive pronouns + self/selves to form the reflexive pronoun, and Standard English is here inconsistent."

From: Varieties of English (Second Edition), pg 44.

Could Standard English use of reflexive pronouns be more easily learned if it were more regular or regularised?

In my experience, it is usage and not the vocabulary which is difficult to learn, with regard to reflexives.

Anuradha Chepur wrote:In my experience, it is usage and not the vocabulary which is difficult to learn, with regard to reflexives.

Yes, many learners find usage difficult, but could that learning be made easier by simplyfying the logic of the words used?

They are at home with the words, but use them wrongly. For example, as subjects.

Anuradha Chepur wrote:They are at home with the words, but use them wrongly. For example, as subjects.

So regularisation is not necessary, IYHO, right?

Yeah!!

I think it's pretty much inevitable that whatever "rules" students learn in the early stages are likely to be oversimplified, though they do need something to hold on to as they get started.

The main problem, as I see it, is when noone points out to them that such "rules" are only guidelines, which they may have to modify later on; all too often students are led to believe that rule X is the whole truth. If I had a fiver for every student who'd said to me "but my last teacher said..." I could have retired by now.

Of course, some rules are just plain wrong and shouldn't be taught at all.

Anuradha Chepur wrote:Yeah!!

And yet many students seem to complain about the irregularity of some verbs, for example. Wouldn't learning and retention be made a lot easier if all English verbs were regularised?

This, for example, makes a lot more sense to me that the standard form:

"I seen him yesterday."

Irregular verbs, firstly we have to know why the hell they evolved.

Anuradha Chepur wrote:Irregular verbs, firstly we have to know why the hell they evolved.

They are the oldest in form. They came through Germanic, long before Old English., and into the languages called Indo-European, including English,

lolwhites wrote:
The main problem, as I see it, is when noone points out to them that such "rules" are only guidelines, which they may have to modify later on; all too often students are led to believe that rule X is the whole truth. If I had a fiver for every student who'd said to me "but my last teacher said..." I could have retired by now.

Precisely, lolwhites. I tell my students that all the rules I give them are for their level of English, and when they learn more they will have to change the rule. I can't tell you how many students I've had who said, "Our teacher said no two pasts." (So, "Did he went ?" is wrong, "Did he go?" is right, and "I went to the store and bought some eggs." is wrong too. )

Precisely, lolwhites. I tell my students that all the rules I give them are for their level of English, and when they learn more they will have to change the rule.

I've never heard of "rules for a certain level". Sounds like partial rules are being taught.

you how many students I've had who said, "Our teacher said no two pasts."

Simply an example of poorly taught students.

metal56 wrote:

Precisely, lolwhites. I tell my students that all the rules I give them are for their level of English, and when they learn more they will have to change the rule.

I've never heard of "rules for a certain level". Sounds like partial rules are being taught.

Of course. If you teach absolute beginners you can't teach them all of the nuances. If I teach future, I teach "going to" and "will". I don't describe at that level how you can use one for spur of the moment stuff (I'll do it!) and how the other can be used for predictions like "I see the black clouds. It's going to rain." Now maybe you'd like to take some beginners and give them the entire list of rules. I think that would be counter productive. If you have advanced students, of course it would be different.

I see metal's view on "two pasts." I don't think I would call that a rule — as if it were presented in a textbook somewhere. I think it was someone's simplified attempt to explain a rule from his or her own creative perspective, albeit obviously misleading, as Lorikeet points out.
I've heard similar things of teachers explaining that we never use much in positive sentences. Well, that just isn't a rule at all. It may be a general tendency or trend, to prevent students from saying "I have much money," instead of "I have a lot of money" in positive or "I don't have much money" in negative.
One time, I was writing a text for advanced students using much legitimately in the positive. I was told I couldn't do that because students would get confused after we had told them so much: "Don't use much in positive sentences — only in negative." I thought how preposterous. We certainly should expose them to correct usage of much in the positive: it isn't that rare. I said it was a wrong "rule," or rather an inexistent one. And if we end up avoiding this aspect of the English language, the students will have a gap. It's better that our students be "confused" at a legitimate appearance in our textbooks, when they have teachers available to ask about it, than when they read a real magazine article, probably on their own. We have to be careful how we word our "rules" — even for beginners. Never say never is often a good guideline. Our textbook committee finally edited out my much.

Here's a great article about good explanations:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/ ... ml#correct