The sceptisim of the "back to basics" (yawn) approach to "re-introducing" grammar in schools is summed up nicely in a letter to the editor in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday (see below). I often wonder when the 'whole language' versus phonics/structural grammar debate that always pitches the two as polar opposites will ever end. Politicians toss the label 'grammar' around as if it were content to be delivered rather than anything more. But loads of great work has been done in Australia at the 'chalkface' integrating grammar into literacy instruction using text/genre-based principles, as well as other approaches.
Of course, this is all rushed due to our debilitating 3 year parliamentary term, isn't it?
Phil
Letter to the editor
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I am interested to discover what exactly Julia Gillard has in mind
when she talks about grammar.
Does she lean towards traditional grammar (Nesfield), transformational
(Chomsky), prescriptive, descriptive, modern? Or is she a Halliday
follower?
English grammar has fallen prey to many linguistic fashions over the
years and with each redefinition of its functions students have been
left in confusion and ignorance. Thanks to the efforts of many
crackpot linguists, grammar has become increasingly incomprehensible
and eventually it seemed to disappear from the English curriculum
altogether. As a result it is debatable how many teachers understand
grammar well enough to be able to teach it.
But before grammar can be taught Ms Gillard’s job will be to broker
some sort of agreement between the linguistic factions, to agree on
what grammar is.
Anne Rxyz Killopli