> >Unfortunately, todays student doesn't have the tools he needs to cope with a
> >foreign language if he hasn't been taught basic sentence structure(subject,
> >verb, predicate nominative, predicate adjective, etc.) , spelling, and
> >grammar.
>
> What the hell is THIS based on? Certainly not reality. Any sentence
> structure and grammar I learned in English class was actually COUNTER
> PRODUCTIVE to me when trying to learn French that uses a totally
> different sentence structure. I was constantly confused when attempting
> to form a sentence in French, as I tried to speak it in English structure.
> I would have to conclude, that LACK of basic sentence structure knowledge
> in English will actually HELP a student learn other languages (including
> English in the long run, as their brain becomes programmed to a more open
> thought process towards language).
As a guy with a degree in linguistics, I have to disagree with you. Word
order != sentence structure. Certainly word order in English differs (and
sometimes violently) from other languages -- German is another good example
with how verbs move around, V2 structure, etc. Nevertheless, the components
of a sentence are in fact universal. Every complete sentence in Swahili has
a noun phrase and a verb phrase (you can think of this as subject and
predicate if you like, although that's not necessarily true), just as in
English. Every language has some idea of a subject. Every language has
ideas of who did what to whom.
While English grammar classes primarily aim to teach you the idiosyncracies
of English, of which there are far too many, they also teach you the parts
of English that are also universal to all languages, and this is inherently
valuable. Moreover, it gets you used to the idea of learning the grammar of
a language, even if the grammar of your next language is totally different.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- It's not illogical to believe in God. --------------------------------------
Received on Fri Jan 04 2002 - 19:34:14 GMT