March 30, 2007
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Quite possibly I'm missing the obvious, but for the life of me I don't see why Dmitry....or anyone else except a teacher of English grammar....should be required to learn the Official Names of Conjunctions, Pronouns, etc.
Who cares? Why does it matter that he knows the technical term for "neither...nor" is a "correlative conjunction"? ISTM the important thing is that he uses them properly. If all he has to do is determine the correct word or form or tense to use, he's pretty darn good. There it is, though....his English workbook had the students circle the conjunctions in a sentence then fill in the blank with exactly what type of conjunction it is; the same with pronouns, adjectives, etc.
Heck, I didn't know "either...or" was a correlative conjunction and it hasn't bothered me a bit, and knowing the technical term isn't going to improve my grammar.
It surely seems to me this sort of thing is unnecessary for students to know, and is basically educational filler. The goal is for them to speak and write correctly; being able to accurately label the individual grammatical elements isn't necessary for that.
Comments (4)
I've gotten along fine without knowing all that. However, Meg is a pro at it, and a good thing, too: she wants to learn languages and be a linguist. Makes life alot easier if you know the parts of language inside out and upside down. And it's crucial for learning Latin (if you want to learn Latin), because that language is an extremely exacting one. So I guess it's a good thinkg if you want to learn other languages and sound good at it.
I probably didn't write it clearly. My fault!
For sure students do need to understand adverbs, adjectives, pronouns, participles, etc. etc. but I don't see the point in trying to get them to memorize the specific type of element it is, such as a subordinate conjunction. Seems to me so long as the student can correctly use and identify conjunctions, etc. it's a pity to count something as wrong because they were confused as to what type of conjunction it is.
Using and identifying them properly is necessary; being able to put a technical name to them is not.
IMO.
ARRGGGHHH! The middle comments suddenly and inexplicably disappeared!
This just drives me CRAZY!
I'm with you on this one, Anne. And I was a linguistics major in college, Mrs. E! LOL prolly, I would have eventually had to label all the parts of language correctly, but for every day use, I simply do not understand the necessity of it. If a person is capable of using language well, and knows where to put what punctuation, does it REALLY matter that he know the reasons why? Who needs to know that stuff? Grammarians, is who. And more power to em, I say!
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