Grammar in the Classroom (Part 4): How did you learn your grammar?
No doubt your grammar is excellent. But how did you learn all those verb conjugations and rules about gerunds? Did your elementary schools teachers teach it all to you? If you are like almost every--no, I take that back--like every single first language speaker of a language, you knew almost all of what we are talking about as grammar before you ever got taught a single lesson in school. In fact, if you were speaking early, you probably knew most of it by the time you were 4 years old.
By the time children enter school, they can all speak in grammatically correct utterances. Even at such a young age, virtually no one's speech deviates from what we understand as verb conjugation or plurals or article usage. Although we learn a great deal about English in school, almost none of this has to do with the grammar of how we speak. Rather, most of it has to do with standardization of the language. Much of this is related to reading and writing. But almost nothing has anything to do with how we speak.
Four-year-olds learn the grammar of English and other languages through the interpretation of input in socially meaningful circumstances. They learn grammar in circumstances where if they don't understand what is said and act upon it accordingly, there are serious consequences. They learn grammar because they hear it said that way over and over and over for thousands of hours.
I know of no one who learned how to utter the third person singular because they were taught by an elementary school teacher? Everyone I know knew how to do this long before they even knew what an elementary school teacher is.
5:29:49 PM 
Grammar in the Classroom (Part 4): How did you learn your grammar?
No doubt your grammar is excellent. But how did you learn all those verb conjugations and rules about gerunds? Did your elementary schools teachers teach it all to you? If you are like almost every--no, I take that back--like every single first language speaker of a language, you knew almost all of what we are talking about as grammar before you ever got taught a single lesson in school. In fact, if you were speaking early, you probably knew most of it by the time you were 4 years old.
By the time children enter school, they can all speak in grammatically correct utterances. Even at such a young age, virtually no one's speech deviates from what we understand as verb conjugation or plurals or article usage. Although we learn a great deal about English in school, almost none of this has to do with the grammar of how we speak. Rather, most of it has to do with standardization of the language. Much of this is related to reading and writing. But almost nothing has anything to do with how we speak.
Four-year-olds learn the grammar of English and other languages through the interpretation of input in socially meaningful circumstances. They learn grammar in circumstances where if they don't understand what is said and act upon it accordingly, there are serious consequences. They learn grammar because they hear it said that way over and over and over for thousands of hours.
I know of no one who learned how to utter the third person singular because they were taught by an elementary school teacher? Everyone I know knew how to do this long before they even knew what an elementary school teacher is.
5:29:49 PM [Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "commentLink" hasn't been defined.]
|
|
|
|
