[English] Teaching Grammar

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

This Australian National Curriculum Board  www.ncb.org.au/home_page.html 

paper presents helpful perspectives for all Australians teaching grammar 
 
http://www.ncb.org.au/verve/_resources/FramingEnglishFINAL_011208.pdf


1 The National English Curriculum: Framing paper proposes broad
directions for what teachers should teach and young people should
learn in the national English curriculum from Kindergarten to Year 12.
  
2  The purpose of this paper is to generate broad-ranging discussions
about curriculum development. The paper is posted on the National
Curriculum Board’s site www.ncb.org.au/our_work/preparing_for_2009.html


The teaching of grammar in English 

32  Questions have long been asked in schools, universities, and the
general community in Australia about the teaching of grammar in English. 

Whether grammar should be taught at all, when, how much & what particular
form(s) of grammar should be taught have all been debated.
 

33  Attention should be given to grammar across K-12, as part of the
‘toolkit’ that helps all students access the resources necessary to meet
the demands of schooling and of their lives outside of school. 

It should include knowledge about the structures and functions of 
word and sentence level grammar, and textual patterns; it should include
an emphasis on the connections between these levels so that this
knowledge is useful. 


34  The goal of teaching grammar and textual patterns should go beyond
students’ labelling of various grammatical categories; it should centre
on goals such as clearer expression of thought, more convincing
argumentation, more careful logic in reasoning, more coherence, 
precision, and imagination in speaking and writing, and knowing how
to choose words and grammatical and textual structures that are more
appropriate to the audience or readership. 

The goal here centres on the gradually more powerful conversion
of ‘knowledge about’ language into a resource for effective reading,
listening, viewing, writing, speaking and designing.

--

Cheers people
Stephen Loosley
Victoria Australia