A new grammar companion for teachers

Beverly Derewianka

• Editore: Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA)
• Anno: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781925132175
• Argomento: Education
• Categoria: Education General

This updated edition of our bestseller is an indispensable reference, written in response to the Australian Curriculum: English. It is organised around the main functions that language plays in our lives — interacting with others, structuring coherent texts, and expressing and connecting ideas. The publication makes links to specific Content Descriptions and Outcomes and extends, for the first time, into Secondary schooling.

1 Introduction

What is grammar?

While there are many technical definitions of grammar, for our purposes we could simply say that grammar is a way of describing how a language works to make meaning.

Why learn about grammar?

We learn about grammar to:

be able to reflect on how the English language works

be able to use language effectively, appropriately and accurately

understand how different kinds of meaning are created through the use of different grammatical forms so that we can control and shape those meanings more skilfully and effectively ourselves

critically analyse texts so we can understand how grammar has been used to achieve certain effects

examine patterns of language and word choices so that we can appreciate, interpret and create well-constructed texts

have a shared language for teaching and learning about the main features of the English language.

A multi-purpose grammar

The description of grammar provided here has been designed so that teachers can use it for a number of different purposes: for exploring how language functions to create different types of meaning; for understanding the structure or formation of various language features; and for anticipating where students might need particular assistance with certain features. The book therefore includes sections on looking at meaning, looking at form, and troubleshooting.

If you are primarily interested in meaning, you might like to focus on those sections that discuss how our linguistic choices create certain meanings. In this book we are viewing grammar as a resource – an array of possibilities from which we can choose. Learning grammar in this sense is seen as extending a learner’s potential to make and interpret meanings.

If you are primarily interested in form, you might like to focus on those sections that explain how various grammatical features are structured. A traditional motive for teaching about grammar has been the development of an analytical approach to language – an ability to ‘reason grammatically’ – along with the identification and naming of different grammatical categories, providing students with a language for talking about language. Knowing how language is structured helps us to deal with questions such as:

What does a noun group consist of?

How are different verb tenses formed?

What does a clause look like?

How are messages combined to form sentences?

Preferably, however, the focus will be on the relationship between meaning and form. In this book, we look at how the different grammatical categories are involved in the construction of meaning with questions such as:

What range of meanings do verbs express?

How can my choice of nouns affect the meaning of the text?

How can I use certain types of adjectives to express my opinion about something?

Which grammatical features are involved in skills such as classifying, defining, describing, generalising, exemplifying?

Which linguistic features can help me produce a text that is coherent and cohesive?

How do grammatical patterns change from text to text? Why and with what effect?

How does the context affect the kinds of grammatical choices made?

If you are concerned about the kinds of problems students might encounter, look for the Troubleshooting notes. There are certain linguistic structures that often cause problems, particularly for young students and EAL/ESL¹ learners. In many cases, the problems will sort themselves out over time. Often, however, it is useful for the teacher to be able to identify trouble spots so that the problem can be explained or so that activities can be designed to address the difficulty. ESL learners will need a much greater focus on developing their control over English grammatical structures and meaning.

It is this area that many people associate with the learning of grammar: the correction of ‘mistakes’. This is a legitimate area of concern. Students’ language is often judged by their control over certain linguistic features, and this can be a significant factor in examinations, job applications, and so on. It is important, however, not to let this get out of perspective. Many ‘problems’ reflect students’ use of social dialects, especially in the spoken mode: he done it; me and him are going home. In the written mode, however, there are probably only a dozen or so problem structures that regularly crop up – and most of them are to do with punctuation, not grammar. Typical of these are issues such as the use of ‘comma splices’ (It was getting late, we went home.); ‘run on sentences’ (The cows got out of the paddock they ran through the streets the farmer couldn’t catch them.); and ‘sentence fragments’ (There were lots of animals. Such as kangaroos, koalas and rabbits.)

A functional perspective

The approach to grammar adopted in this book draws heavily upon the pioneering work done by Professor Michael Halliday in the area of Systemic Functional Linguistics. Functional Grammar is built upon a series of assumptions about the way language works in context:

Language is a dynamic, complex system of resources for making meaning.

Language reflects the culture in which it has evolved. It is not a neutral medium, but expresses certain world views, values, beliefs and attitudes.

Our language choices change from situation to situation, depending on the social purpose for which language is being used, the subject matter, who is involved, and whether the language is spoken or written.

The emphasis in language study is on how people use authentic language in various contexts in real life to achieve their purposes. The particular focus of this book will be on the language needed for successful participation in school contexts.

A knowledge of grammar can help us to critically evaluate our own texts and those of others (eg identifying point of view; examining how language can be manipulated to achieve certain effects and position the reader in different ways; knowing how language can be used to construct various identities or a particular way of viewing the world).

A functional approach looks at how language enables us to do things in our daily lives. To participate successfully in school and the community, for example, students need to know how to use language:

for achieving different social purposes

for sharing ideas about their experience of the world

for making connections between these ideas

for interacting with others

and for constructing coherent texts in both spoken and written modes.

Achieving different social purposes

As they progress through school and life, learners need to be able to use language in order to achieve a range of social purposes such as describing, explaining, arguing or recounting. These different social purposes are expressed through different text types (or genres). Young children operate with a moderate range of text types, which generally have a relatively basic, unelaborated structure (eg recounts involving only a couple of events, arguments that are often unsupported by evidence, explanations of only a sentence or two in length). With teacher guidance over the years, students should be able to confidently interpret and employ a wide range of text types for a variety of social purposes, including texts that have a more complex, unpredictable structure. This provides students with a solid preparation for the demands of secondary school and life in the community.

The Australian Curriculum: English requires that students develop proficiency in a range of text types for a variety of purposes. While not dealing in detail with different text types, this book will refer to how different grammatical resources are drawn on in achieving different social purposes, such as the use of the past tense to refer to events in a recount or the use of the present tense to refer to ‘timeless’ actions in an information report.

Expressing ideas

A major function of language is to represent experience, to help us to express and understand what goes on in our lives. This is sometimes called the ‘observer’ function of language. In the school context, this includes using and understanding the language of the different areas of the curriculum. It is now well known that each disciplinary area has its own way of using language to develop knowledge and understandings relevant to that area. The language of science, for example, is quite different from the language of history. The language used in English literary texts is quite different from that of geography texts. Students need to be able to read and write texts that become increasingly technical, abstract, and subject-specific as they move through the school system from primary to secondary school.

On entering school, students’ language will be concerned with more particular, everyday understandings (‘my family’, ‘our neighbourhood’). As they grow older, they need to be able to talk and write in more generalised terms (‘families’, ‘dinosaurs’) about less familiar topics which often require research (‘the planets’, ‘volcanic eruptions’) and specialist terminology (‘solar system’, ‘lava’). It cannot be taken for granted that this type of language will develop automatically.

Chapter 2 illustrates how grammar functions to represent experience: the kinds of activities taking place; the participants in those activities; and the circumstances surrounding those activities.

Connecting ideas

Not only do students need to know how to express ideas through language, they need to ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover Page
• Copyright
• PREFACE
• Dedication
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• CONTENTS
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• 2 LANGUAGE FOR EXPRESSING IDEAS
• 3 CONNECTING IDEAS
• 4 LANGUAGE FOR INTERACTING WITH OTHERS
• 5 CREATING COHESIVE TEXTS
• 6 REVISITING THE FUNCTIONS OF LANGUAGE
• References