Grammar - is it still taught/prioritised in Schools?

[lisalisa]

Just reading soemthing about grammar on another thread and it brought to mind issues I've been having with my children's grammar.

I've noticed that grammar as a subject to be learnt has not been introduced yet to dd - she's in year 3. I don't actaully remember learning it myself at School - just sort of picked it up but dd says things like " I beginned to like this mummy". I do correct her and ds ( aged 5 in Year 1) who also comes out with similar whoppers but neither of them really seem to twig.

Is this common and does it sort of fall into place or is this something that should be taught by now? I had in mind learning " I begin, he begins, past tense - they began, it is beginning "etc.

Another one is the verb to run. both dd and ds say " I runned over there mummy". Runned fgs??? Don't you mean ran over there? No mummy, ran is a daddy sheep.

Do your dc's learn grammar or do they also make these mistakes?

DD1 is very bright and ds too ( although he has a few more problems with reading and writing so probably wouldn't have thought twice if it'd been just him).

Take a look at the 'Standards' website (if you can read the incredibly small text) and you will see how it is 'supposed' to work.....will find you the link!

\link{http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/literacy/publications/sentence/63317\here you go - Grammar for Writing}

The focus is much more grammar with a purpose rather than grammar for the sake of it....no more boring 'exercises'
HTH

I've noticed a definite LACK of correcting things in children's work in schools. I've no idea why. I often receive letters from 7-10 year old relatives and friends which are virtually incoherent. I know I sound like an old Tory grandma but I wonder whether correcting children is seem as putting them down or something?

I will come back to this thread...have to go now.....but will be back!

Were you taught grammar when you were at school? I wasn't - (started school in, oh, 1966 I should think) in any way re English, but remember finding the revelation of the "rules" - that also applied to English - when starting French and Latin (now, that would have been about 1971) genuinely fascinating. I really don't see why it wasn't/isn't thought appropriate for native tongue learning - not bashing teachers AT ALL here, it's a question about general current education policy.

And, if anyone can point me to a website or a book series that does do exercises, I'll sign up right away!

It's totally appropriate for mother tongue learning, and it's practically impossible to teach a foreign language to people who have no grasp of English grammar.

I used to teach German to people in Japanese banks, and used to groan whenever I had English pupils - they had absolutely no idea what the subject of a sentence was, and it took half the lesson to teach them English grammar which my Japanese pupils already knew!

Thanks Popsycal althgouh I downloaded the year 3 exercises which were just a series of compositions designed to highlight different tenses of a verb i.e. past and present. I didn't see anything about the approach of grammar itself.

I wasn't taught grammar at school but my darling mum kept a lot of my school work and writing for pleasure and I was capable of a good essay and poetry (!) at 8 years old whereas my dd ( although she will write reams) is also quite incoherent in terms of grammar and just missing out or badly misspelling words.

She is starting private tuition tonight and I'm wondering whether to ask the teacher to do some grammar work with her. She will probably see me as aol old Tory Grandma as one other poster said. I don't care though - im paying the bill!!

Grammar was very out of fashion when I went to school - ealry 1980s - but we did learn some.

Lisalisa - that website covers what teachers are meant to teach children wthin the literacy hour..

PLease ask if you want me to be more specific....I could go on for ages! But I firmly believe that the approach to grammar now recommended to schools (through the grammar for writng stuff) is very good and is the key to 'good' writing......

\link{http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/literacy/publications/word/63313\here} are the spellings that they shoudl know - with suggested 'approaches' to how they can be taught

My ds1 did quite a bit of 'grammar' last year at school (yr2), and even more this year. In yr1 the emphasis was on free (uninhibited writing), but after that corrections were made on spellings and so on in books. They also have formal spellings to learn and spelling tests.

We do have some 'non standard English' dialect here, including 'grammatically incorrect past tenses'; and obviously it can be difficult if children regularly speak and hear these phrases at home and around to expect them to read the 'correct' phrases let alone write them for themselves in their own compositions.

I don't know what the 'official line' is on dialects, do you Popsy?

What a lot of quotation marks in my post - looks like it's raining! Sorry

Not too sure what goes on in schools now, but know that DH does a total of 5 hours of intensive grammar work with his new first year tutees. TBH their grammar is shocking and they get very upset when they are told that they do need to get it right. The students need 2 A's and a B to get on the course but they haven't got a clue about apostrophes.

I was taught English as a foreign language and am very grateful for the "boring" exercises i had to do in Junior school.

Dialects - a tricky one!
By Year Six, I try to emphasise the difference between spoken English and written English and would query soemthing written as 'What are youse doing?'
Is that the kind of thing you mean?
When they get to KS3 I believe that there is a whole topic on standard English etc

don't get me going on apostrophes!!!

:)

Well, yes, that sort of thing. I'm struggling to think of examples, as we're not local.

Locally many people would say "Last night we was going out". I listen to readers in school, and about half of the class (yr3) will stumble over the phrase "we were going out", and many will correct it, and read "we was going out". I don't see their writing, so I don't know if they write it or not.

But similarly with lisalisa's "runned" - my kids don't say this, they don't hear it at home, but round here it's not wrong ..?!

Ooh - can't we have an apostrophe conversation....please

Oops sorry, they are actually yr4, not yr3.

ooooh let's do apostrophes!!!

I think the anti-grammar movement has gone too far, so I suppose I'm also unashamed to be a Tory grandma. I went to primary school in the sixties and seventies. It had a very mixed catchment to say the least but I remember clearly being taught the differences between standard speech and writing, and "localisms" if you like to put it that way, whether oral or written. The issue seems to me to be partly that thousands of children today simply aren't taught the difference, and that's before they get anywhere near apostrophes and similar points. If a child in, say, London is never taught that "we was going" is grammatically incorrect (and why), but is simply a common (ie in frequent use) way of talking in their own geographical area, then I think he is going to be educationally hampered for the rest of his life. He will not be equipped with the full information, and that's just not fair. Why not teach these things properly?

Hmm. I think if you read a lot then you may "acquire" grammar (you're still learning it, but passively, rather than actively). But if you don't, then you won't necessarily. The guys I taught who worked in Japanese banks, were all reasonably educated (they would have had to be graduates to get jobs there) but they didn't have the faintest clue about English grammar - and that made it much more difficult to teach them German. Whereas all the Japanese guys were perfectly versed in all areas of English grammar!

Knowing the terminology is just a very useful shorthand. So if you can refer to the subject of the sentence needing the nominative case without having to explain what subjects and cases are, it makes the lesson shorter and means you can get more German done!

'We runned' actually shows they know the basic rules of the past tense, and have the ability to apply to it other verbs, surely? I wouldn't correct a three year old who said this, but I would gently correct a seven year old though.