If you're actually hearing people violating subject-verb-object in English, give me examples, because it would be linguistically newsworthy. :) In terms of teaching English, I'm skeptical about grammar instruction being in any way useful -- a better tack would be encouraging kids to read massive amounts of decent prose. Possibly computers could do that about as well as mediocre English teachers. It would be interesting to see. (I wonder how widespread computer teaching would affect the distribution of the remaining really good teachers. Would they be more highly concentrated in private institutions or tutoring roles, or would there be some more egalitarian system of access to them?...)
I must admit to being at least partially inspired by Stephenson's "The Diamond Age." While I don't think that anything like the level of instruction/life guidance provided by the computer-assisted learning there is plausible or even necessary, it was interesting. It also somewhat highlighted the importance of a feeling of connection (through the human actors providing the voices for the teaching system) in the process. I could easily see a computer being better at encouraging reading than a mediocre English teacher - perhaps offering automatically generated tailored content, and ensuring decent style
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Found I that did learning Latin more for my knowledge of syntax than all my English courses put together... Think I, perhaps, that would be making sure that learns everyone at least one other language a better way to use school resources.
Yes, well, if we can't even teach proper English, I'm not confident of our ability to teach foreign languages properly. And at risk of sounding elitist (heh), I'm not worried about people like you. You're going to learn well, probably even in spite of teachers.
I'm not sure how this would interact with school resource use. Seems like a project for some wacky university research department, maybe Children's Studies meets Comp Sci meets Psych. Call up the Scaz!
Well, but the thing is, I didn't find that any of the English "grammar" that we were taught made any sense, until I had something to compare it with. It's a lot easier for anyone to find patterns when they have more than one piece of data to work with
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Of COURSE proper English is a social construct. What do you take me for :P I agree that grammar isn't enough by itself, and that what's actually required is far more comprehensive. The interesting question to me is not (for the purposes of this discussion, anyway) what we should be teaching, but whether and how we're teaching it effectively. "Proper" curriculum is a whole bag of worms that I'm not prepared to open at the moment.
That being said...you and fionnidhke both note that a solution to some of the problems noted is to get kids to spend more time reading (and writing). I'm of the opinion that a good program is potentially far more qualified than a bad teacher to accomplish this.
I am a little curious as to why teaching the prestige dialect as "correct" is a flaw. I don't necessarily disagree (or agree), but I'd like to hear more on that.
this quote seems somehow appropriate to me... "Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." -some guy. Call me cynical :) Unfortunately I lack sufficient intelligence to contribute anything actually meaningful to this discussion, so I'll shut up now.
It's true that users are often lusers and that many errors are of the PEBKAC type - but too much cynicism is bad for you, keeps you from getting anything done. If I accepted that implication, I'd have to stop writing anything with a user interface! And I'm not prepared to do that.
Incidentally, did you get that quote from the Wiz books (not that it doesn't show up many other places)?
Cynical! :) Also prattishly self-deprecating. I bet you actually have ideas -- we've spent way too much time debating educational issues, what with RAHA and associated craziness...
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In terms of teaching English, I'm skeptical about grammar instruction being in any way useful -- a better tack would be encouraging kids to read massive amounts of decent prose. Possibly computers could do that about as well as mediocre English teachers. It would be interesting to see.
(I wonder how widespread computer teaching would affect the distribution of the remaining really good teachers. Would they be more highly concentrated in private institutions or tutoring roles, or would there be some more egalitarian system of access to them?...)
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I'm not sure how this would interact with school resource use. Seems like a project for some wacky university research department, maybe Children's Studies meets Comp Sci meets Psych. Call up the Scaz!
Reply
Reply
That being said...you and fionnidhke both note that a solution to some of the problems noted is to get kids to spend more time reading (and writing). I'm of the opinion that a good program is potentially far more qualified than a bad teacher to accomplish this.
I am a little curious as to why teaching the prestige dialect as "correct" is a flaw. I don't necessarily disagree (or agree), but I'd like to hear more on that.
Reply
Reply
Incidentally, did you get that quote from the Wiz books (not that it doesn't show up many other places)?
Reply
Also prattishly self-deprecating. I bet you actually have ideas -- we've spent way too much time debating educational issues, what with RAHA and associated craziness...
Reply
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