Investing in Misery Reduction

For many teachers and students, GRAMMAR is a six-letter bad word.  Students at every level need an understanding of basic grammar in order to write correct sentences.  Some students know grammar intuitively while others need to learn it cognitively.

Many English teachers, including myself, have an intuitive understanding of grammar.  We write correctly even if we don't necessarily know the terminology and rules behind the choices we make.   When I was a new teacher trying to grade my first set of papers, I knew when a student's sentence didn't sound right, and I knew a better way to write that sentence, but I didn't know how to explain my corrections to the student. WHY should this word be changed?  WHY should this be a semi-colon instead of a comma?  "It will sound better" is not helpful instruction for a student who doesn't have a great intuitive understanding of grammar.  I needed to learn the terminology and rules of grammar so that I could teach my students effectively.

Over the years I developed a method for teaching grammar (and its cousin, punctuation) that works for all students.  Those who have an intuitive understanding of grammar learn quickly and are often fascinated and eager to learn this material.  "This is so interesting!  I never knew this before!" is a common response.   Those who who are not as adept at language feel a sense of relief that at last they understand grammar and have steps to follow which enable them to find and correct mistakes in their writing.  "I always hated English, but this isn't too bad" is a typical response from these students.

This brings us to the title of this blog:  Investing in Misery Reduction.

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in·vest
verb

1.  expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result by putting it into financial schemes, shares, or property, or by using it to develop a commercial venture.

informal
buy (something) whose usefulness will repay the cost.
"they invested in a new car"

2.  provide or endow someone or something with (a particular quality or attribute).
"the passage of time has invested the words with an unintended humor"
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Both of these definitions of invest are appropriate to a discussion of teaching grammar.  When we expend some class time teaching the foundations of grammar* (verbs and subjects, phrases, independent and dependent clauses) we do so with the expectation of achieving a profit.  We expect that the time invested in this instruction will pay off by actually saving time in the long run.  The usefulness of this learning will repay the cost, that is, the class time spent.  Also, time spent on the foundations of grammar endows the student with something valuable: the skills needed to write correct sentences and the confidence that comes with those skills.

The fact that this instruction will pay off by actually saving time in the long run brings us to misery reduction.  Students get discouraged when they keep making a mistake (writing sentence fragments, for example) and never understand why the sentence is wrong or how to fix it.  Students get bored and frustrated listening over and over again to a brief, confusing explanation.

English teachers at all levels have a lot of material to cover, so it is quite understandable that they may be reluctant to devote time to a thorough teaching of grammar foundations.  However, the time invested on these lessons more than pays for itself in the long run. When it's time to learn commas, the teacher need only say, "Use a comma after an introductory dependent clause."  If the student knows what a dependent clause is, he/she will understand this comma rule easily.  If the student writes a sentence fragment, the teacher can say, "What could you do to give this sentence an independent clause?"  With an accurate vocabulary of basic grammatical terms, teachers and students can discuss sentences effectively, and students develop the confidence that comes from success.  


* Many people think of the parts of speech (noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection) as the foundations of grammar, and in one way the parts of speech certainly are foundational.  But for the practical purpose of teaching students to write correct sentences, the foundations are the basic parts of a sentence:  phrases, independent clauses, and dependent clauses.  In order to identify those parts, students must first learn to identify verbs, subjects, and subordinating conjunctions. These six components are the foundation for understanding every aspect of grammar and punctuation.