Re: Past Perfect Songs

Mister Micawber — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:05:13 GMT

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It is not a common verb tense and aspect. It is seldom used, and I strongly advise you not to waste time teaching it, but to go on to something more valuable, like additional vocabulary.

Re: Is grammar essential for learning a language?

CalifJim — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:32:51 GMT

"Grammar and exercises are only requirements of the syllabus, not of learning a language. Did you learn the grammar of your mother-tongue when you were acquiring it? Most of you may still not know the grammar of your mother-tongue but you speak it effortlessly."

If grammar means identifying the names of parts of speech, the names of the tenses, and that sort of knowledge of terminology (Past Perfect Progressive), then this is certainly not a requirement of learning a language.
If grammar means the knowledge of which words and word-forms go together to make coherent communications within a language, even if instinctively applied, then I think we'd have to say that grammar is a requirement of some kind.

I agree that I did not learn the grammar of my mother-tongue when I was acquiring it -- in the first sense of 'grammar'.
I do think, however, that I "learned"/acquired the grammar of my mother-tongue when I was acquiring it -- in the second sense of 'grammar'. In fact, except for vocabulary, which is a simple matter of stimulus-response, it seems to me that the acquistion of a language IS the acquisition of its grammar.

It is believed that between the ages of six and ten, the cells in the language acquistion portion of the brain die off or take on a different function, so that it is impossible to acquire language after approximately age 10, certainly after puberty. Remember that the acquistion of language is like birds "learning" to fly. They don't exactly study a flight manual before taking off on their first flight!

Nevertheless, though the language acquisition window closes around puberty, most likely for biological reasons, and we may no longer be able to acquire a new language, we can certainly still learn one. At this point, we are usually forced to use a lot of artificial techniques to help us. The logic of a language is no longer as easily grasped instinctively, but must be, we might almost say, 'computed', at least in the beginning stages. The rules for these 'computations' are called grammar. The 'computation' is not thinking within language but thinking about language, examining language somewhat more objectively than is typical within the language we first acquired. Sometimes the computational aspect is presented very formally to the learner. In such systems there is an underlying belief (in the mind of the instuctors) that the terminology is so useful in explaining the grammatical machinery that it cannot be dispensed with. In other methodologies a more flexible approach is used, sometimes out of fear of the very real possibility (I think) that knowledge of the terminology will be seen as more important than the ability to express oneself in the target language.

Regardless of how formal or informal, or how rigid or flexible the presentation, I don't see how anyone can learn a language without exercises, despite the obvious fact that we all acquired one without exercises. We can't expect our muscles to grow strong without exercise, and the failure of some to see the analogy with mental activity is quite puzzling. And the exercises that are needed are language exercises (practicing using the language), not grammar exercises (practicing using the terminology of grammar). I find it disheartening to see questions on this very forum in which it is obvious that students must negotiate the fine points of the terminology: Is this a participle acting as a noun acting as an adverbial complement of a phrasal verb used idiomatically or is this a progressive tense in the passive voice accompanied by an adverbial dependent clause of concession? Apparently, within the educational system of such students these matters pass as learning English. So in that sense, I'm against 'exercises'!

In any case, the struggle for the learner is always making the conversion from 'computing' utterances (assembling them by applying grammatical rules) to generating meaningful utterances spontaneously. The more role models the learners have, whether in terms of number of speakers they have contact with or in terms of the number of written and spoken resources they have available, the smoother the transition. At the extreme, if the learner is thrown into a sink-or-swim situation -- immersion -- it may be possible to shortcut the 'computational' period considerably. The final goal is the same in any case: meaningful language that is automatically produced and instinctively felt without any further consciousness of or need for the 'computational' (grammatical) aspects which were so prominent and necessary in the learning stages.

In summary, I believe the author of the quote above is taking grammar to mean excessive preoccupation with terminology and exercises to mean exercises designed to learn the terminology of grammar. Taken in this way, I must agree with the author. Of course, it is possible to interpret those words differently, which is why the statement has generated so many comments. I prefer to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that he or she was merely describing an approach which concentrates more on the target language and less on the terminology.

CJ

Re: Question

LanguageLover — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 11:03:39 GMT

The language of media is a bit different, both in vocabulary and grammar, than the normal writing. One of the differences is the tense, as you've mentioned. If the time of the event, state,... is past, the tense of the sentence is present; if it is past perfect, then the sentence is past; and you can figure out the rest. For example, the verbs in the first paragraph would be in the past tense if it wasn't a part of newspaper article (this also can happen in narrations in a book or story, ...as well), so we would have:

Many of today's headlines focused on the new alliance with France. The Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper wrote "Poland teamed up with France against stingy Great Britain". Just two weeks ago, it added, the Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, had told his British counterpart Tony Blair in London, that Poland considered the UK its closest European ally.

And about "is offered", the sententence is passive, and it was actually "was offered". Hope that it helps.

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Re: Past Perfect Songs

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