Transformational Grammar

9below0 · Post by **9below0** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:58 pm

Hi,

I have been asked to teach "transformational" grammar to upper-intermediate students at an interview I have for a new job. I have no idea what transformational grammar is and I would be grateful if someone could explain it to me here.

Thanks for your help.

woodcutter · Post by **woodcutter** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:46 pm

Look it up in "Wikipedia" (you can find that with a google.com search)

Then quit your new job, if you were given it.

Stephen Jones · Post by **Stephen Jones** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:46 pm

Something is strange here.

If these are upper-intermediate students of English, then why are they doing an undergraduate linguistics discipline?

And how on earth can you be expected to teach something when you don't even know what it is? Would you accept teaching a university course in string theory, or Boolean algebra, if you had never heard of the phrase before?

I must admit, I rather suspect the person who interviewed you doesn't really know what transformational grammar is either.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 8:20 am

I studied Transformational Grammar for my Linguistics degree many moons ago. It was an idea of Chomsky's; maybe you could simply explain to your students that Chomsky has always said that he can;t see how his ideas could be used for the teaching of a second language.

Sounds like the person interviewing you doesn't know what he/she is talking about.

guest123 · Post by **guest123** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 12:45 pm

Chomsky's book 'Syntactic Structures' is both an argument for his theory of grammar and a students' textbook. It's pretty easy to use, takes things step by step and you can even learn along with your students.

Have fun.