Question:
I am the deputy head of a small, non denominational private school in North Sydney by the name of JOHN COLET
SCHOOL. Through an interest in classical language, in particular, Sanskrit,
I have become interested in finding a simple, logical method of teaching
English grammar to primary school children.
I have begun writing the first stages of a text, which I have tried out on
the children with some success.
In order to make the text have the widest appeal, I would like to hear
from anyone interested in teaching Grammar to 7,8,9 year old children and
to hear:
1. Do you have a suitable text to work from? If so what is it?
2. What sort of thing would you like to see in a grammar text for this age
group?
Answer:
. I'm just getting used to this system, so I think I sent you a
blank message. I'm a professor of English interested in lang. ed.; I
teach at a state Univ south of Pittsburgh. I share your interest in
the problem of introducing conscious knowledge about language to
children and teenagers. People who haven't yet internalized an adult
level of literacy have great difficulty understanding abstract grammatical
concepts. Certainly the traditional methods don't work. At the elementary
level kids might have fun with "mimesism," an exercise in which the
student tries to imiate the structure of sentences in a passage using
her own (different) content. For example, you might ask children to
try to write a sentence which imitates a sentence with an embedded
element between the subject and verb, such as: "The snake, sliding
silently, came towards me." But using a different content, such as
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