Question for the over 65s!

[lightlights]

Not an AIBU exactly, but I have been having this discussion with someone. When you were at school, did you learn all verbs, all tenses, by rote, for example:
I am
You are
He/she is
We are
You are
They are

Schools stopped teaching grammar in the 70s apparently and some grammar teaching re-started sometime in the 90s, but before the 70s formal and strict grammar was taught, is that right?
Thank you!

I'm 'only' 63, but I don't remember being taught English that way, only French and Latin (I didn't learn any other languages but I think they were taught the same way). However we did learn about tenses. Grammar was important, as was spelling.

Definitely not.

We learned grammar by using it in our writing and being corrected. As we got older parts of sentences and then more formal grammar was taught , but never by rote.

I'm 65 and I learned how to conjugate verbs in French and German, but not in English.

I had never heard of the subjunctive until I took French A level.

I'm 65 today, do I qualify?

I think we did, but primary school was such a looooong time ago. Like a pp, we did French and Latin by rote. I have a vague recollection of doing English grammar lessons in what is now called Year 7 - well it was a grammar school! - but not after that, and don't remember precisely what it covered.

Yes did that in the 70s at Scottish equivalent of grammar school. Learning by rote is one of the most effective ways humans have learned since the dawn of intelligence.

Not quite 65, but yes I did although most of my understanding of grammar came from learning foreign languages.

I'm 50 and learned French and German verbs like this (and still remember them).

They were definitely teaching this way in the 70s and for languages in the 80s.

No we didn't (I'm 70). We worked our way through the book 'First Aid in English,' which has been updated to reflect today's society, but otherwise remains the same. It's an excellent book.
We also did Progress papers as preparation for the 11plus.

Happy birthday @Anniegetyourgun 💐🍰

Absolutely not. We did, however, do the equivalent in French.

I'm 72 and I can recall a question in our mocks about subjunctives etc. And only one person in the class of 30 knew what the question even meant. When we learnt French and Spanish it all became clear.

No. Definitely not.
Only for French, Latin, German & Spanish.

I remember underlining Verbs in red, nouns in green, adjectives in yellow in the Juniors, but no more until the Seniors, when we did Greek and learnt tenses like perfect, imperfect, pluperfect. Can't remember when the subjunctive made its appearance.

Yes, at secondary school.

I'm early 70s,

I'm mid fifties and did English O level. We definitely weren't taught grammar rules like that in a formal way. But funnily enough, I have posted about it before and been roundly told by some other mumsnetters that I am wrong.

I also moved midway through primary to a school that did ITA. Fortunately, I was allowed to continue working in TO which I'm sure helped me out. Owr hym sheets wer in ita tho so I woz still lernt it.

Yes, we started out with learning the parts of speech - what is a noun, a verb, an adverb, adjective, preposition, and so on. And then we would do what was called 'parsing' a sentence, so we would underline the various parts of speech in the sentence. Then it would be learning the difference between present, future and past tenses, gerunds and so on. That would have been in the mid to late 60s.

63 , a child of the 60's, education seemed optional even when I was at school, I suffered from the consequences all through my life, no grammar was taught.

i think the pendulum has swung too far the other way now. Primary school children only need to know the basics of SPAG. Leave the detailed information to linguistics qualifications.

I am over 65 and have never been taught grammar. We learned that an adjective a descriptive word , a verb was a doing word and a noun a physical thing. And an adverb described a verb
That was it nothing else or more involved than that. Children now do much more grammar than we ever did. I don't understand what any of the other grammatical teens mean

I'm 66, wasn't taught grammar at school at all

I went to a progressive school and would have liked even that level of grammar taught. I think they thought we'd pick it up by osmosis, clue I didn't.

I didn't really learn grammar until I had to teach it.

Not quite 65 yet, not sure on OPS question but I do remember learning times tables by rote virtually every day. One one is two two two's are four etc etc. 50 odd years later I can still do it.
We're we also rigorously taught handwriting punctuation and spellings by teachers who had full control of the clas and would brook no nonsense from anyone

No. I went to school in Cambridgeshire which I think was quite progressive in the 60s & 70s. I remember my education as being liberal and child-centred and a fair few hippy teachers.

My school was a very provincial convent and also the local grammar school. I don’t remember learning tenses by rote (in English) but I suspect it was assumed we knew those by the time we arrived at 5. We did have English language lessons, and I did English Language ’O’ level; we spent time parsing paragraphs into their constituent parts and being tested on things like past participles and future conditionals.

I was really good at it (I was a terrible goody two-shoes) and remain a committed pedant even though I’ve forgotten all the theory.

I’m 62 and no was not taught English tenses by rote. Had Welsh medium education and not taught them in English either. We were taught them in French and Latin. We learned by being expected to be able to get our thoughts down in both Welsh and English. As A level students we had to sit a Use of English and Use of Welsh test.