undergraduate seminars on basic grammar and punctuation!!!

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

horrified to see this advertised today in my local university. This was the first in a series of seminars that included essay writing, paragraphs, making an argument, introductions, conclusions. WTF do they do at A level, grumble grumble wouldn;t happen in my day, what are things coming to.

Yes Ellbell, as long as the foreign language is properly taught! My school tried to teach German in a way that involved picking up the grammar by osmosis, which didn't work! Latin was taught traditionally and I think gave us a huge benefit in terms of really understanding how language functions.

Slug - you go girl! I bet some of the academics there were silently cheering you on.

I teach English to German undergraduates and can confirm these problems are not limited to the UK - their English grammar is , but according to colleagues who mark work submitted by them in German, their German grammar is not much better.

don't get me wrong, I never intended to critisie the university for doing it - I am just pretty disgusted that it's neccesary, why on earth are people coming out of school aged 18 without being able to write properly? it's a disgrace. (and I agree about other langauges - I learnt Latin and it is great for grammar)

I know my degree is helping me (although when I started uni at 18 I had no support on how to write an essay), but the people I sit with at uni (ranging from accsess students to 18 year olds with A'Levels) have found these sessions confusing, boring, and a bit too much, we also have written instructions on how to write this essay and thinking on it we have probably had more like 10 hours on writing this essay. I think part of a first written assignment is to learn how to do them, and by spoon feeding us it has taken away some of the learning opportunities.
My course is not fabulous anyway in terms of the uni stuff, so this is more of a general rant I guess.

I am still horrified that you have to fo 4000 word essays, far too much!

Part of the problem with SPAG is that it is only English teachers who correct it (at secondary level). No marks are awarded for it in other subjects. Also, many subjects have short-answer exams now so students don't even experience writing an extended essay until university.

The teaching of grammar at DD's primary school is shocking. In Yr 4 her teacher was unable to use the apostrophe correctly! I frequently corrected her comments and eventually she admitted that DD's use of grammar was better than her own (she is in her early twenties). I fear for those children whose parents are unable to help them as they might not be taught it well at school simply because the younger teachers haven't been taught it themselves.

In teaching english - we moved away from the nuts and bolts - and more to the whole text etc....

Teaching spelling and grammar was done incidentally as part of teaching a whole text - play, novel, poem etc - so it became very disjointed and if you as teacher were unsure then you could almost leave it out of your units.

Me - old dragon - taught basics - spelling, grammar, punctuation - one lesson a week - EVERY week and they hated me for it but it worked!!

Talking about my experiences teaching both here in Australia and in the UK

Good on you, eidsvold! Keep it up! I make no apologies for insisting on (and where necessary teaching) English spelling and grammar as part of my foreign language and literature teaching...

Yoyo, you are right! I'm a secondary teacher and have been for 8 years, yet I have never had any training in grammar; it wasn't the done thing in my day.

Whilst my understanding can be a bit dodgy(particularly on colons and semi colons) I do make the effort to correct obvious errors in my students' work. I always check bad spelling like 'arguements' and 'miricals'.

I also mark 'A' level exam papers, and you would be shocked if you saw the levels of text speak that appear in their exam papers. Unfortunately, we just have to ignore it.

I recall an application form from a hopeful headteacher who was a "Batchelor" of Education. He didn't get the job, but I know many teachers with a poor command of English. Also , is it now OK to say different to? At school I was always taught that it should be different from.

It should be 'different from', but this is one of those things which is gradually becoming accepted. I do hear 'different to' on the BBC, for example, though it does make me wince. Nonetheless, I do correct it on students' work... but we have already established that I am a sad old pedant!

Tutors mark work? Notice grammatical mistakes in assignments, isn't that what they are meant to do?
Workshops on essay writing etc, whatever next?
Helping student's who need it

i woudl like to go to one of those

Oh dear, Mullarkey... sounds like you've had a bad experience. IME (quite extensive) lecturers spend a lot of time on essay-writing skills, spelling, grammar, all the rest of it. But actually that's not what we are employed to teach... we are employed to teach whatever it is that we're experts in. So if students really need a lot of help with those sorts of things (rather than just the correction of the odd misplaced apostrophe, or whatever) then centrally organised seminars (for those that need them) are a good idea.

I have never knowingly read past a misplaced apostrophe without reaching for my pen!

Oh Ellbell, it's Mallarkey!NOT Mullarkey
Just proves a point we can all make mistakes!

If the English is terrible in a 4000 word essay or 15000 word dissertation it can take literally hours to correct it, which is a waste of my time (and hence I have less time to spend with students talking about the stuff I am supposed to be teaching).
I'm all for central support on language.

When marking children's work I wouldn't dream of marking all mistakes! But use the bubble and block method positive first e.g. good layout or organisation then but look carefully at and pick one thing that needed further work i.e punctuation or apostrophes.

I was taught grammar by a mad old Nun!!!. For some reason can't remember a bit of it and believe me she was scary. I hope some of her teachings have settled in my sub-conscious. I also can't spell to save my life nothing to do with my schooling though.

I find my fear of misspelling and using poor grammar inhibits me when writing anything even on MN so could it be that the new generation who don't give a s**t about grammar are more creative in their writing?

Oops! The shame !

Sorry Mallarkey.

(Didn't mean to suggest that I only bang on about spelling and punctuation, though. I correct those mistakes, but my comments at the end focus on the content, as that's what I'm really interested in. Would only take marks off for poor spelling/punctuation if it is so bad as to hamper comprehension of the points being made. But I still correct it.)

Must say I'm finding it hard to write essays again 21 years after graduating - MA style went out of the window with any other style when I had baby no. 4. I've taught a lot and have a good grasp of grammar (sadly passed it on - dd aged 12 asked if it would be rude to scratch an apostrophe off a car today - "pools and spa's") - but my 4500 words are causing me major stress. Maybe I've just lost confidence.