English Syntax

1. English Syntax

2. Arguments against traditional prescriptive grammar teaching • L1 grammar is acquired without explicit instruction or corrective feedback • Students have difficulty learning and retaining concepts from traditional grammar • “There is no relationship between grammar study and writing” (Krashen) • “The teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or…even a harmful effect on the improvements of writing” (NCTE) • So why do we still teach grammar?

3. Some arguments in favor of teaching grammar (from Larsen-Freeman) • Canadian French immersion programs – limited accuracy in French syntax and morphology • Less salient grammatical features or those not crucial for comprehension are not acquired • Self-reinforcing nature of peer interlanguage *”me llamo es” • Form-focused instruction converts “input” to “intake” • Destabilize an incorrect rule

4. Descriptive grammar • Deep structure vs. surface structure • Structural ambiguity • Different structures of the same sentence • Order of words • Word categories • Grouping of words - constituents • Optional and obligatory constituents: NP  (DET)-(Q)-(ADJP)-N-(PP) • Recursivity: output feeds input: Potentially infinite sentences • Function of words/groups • [PP] – ADJ or A; [NP] – DO or IO • Dependency relationships • Hierarchical structure: tree diagrams

5. Compound and complex sentences – relationship between parts of sentences • Writers begin with simple, then compound sentences and later learn to subordinate ideas • Subordinate clauses function as A, ADJ, N • A: “after, because, if” (describe when, where, why, how) • ADJ: “who, which, that” (follow N; restrictive/nonrestrictive) • N: “what, whatever, that” • Shortening complex sentences doesn’t make reading easier (?) • Sentence combining activities

6. Reading • Word recognition view: • use semantic/ context clues to determine word meaning • Sociopsycholinguistic view: • use syntax as a cueing system to predict patterns • A phev was larzing two sleks • Make predictions based on word function • Go followed by locative (where) • Cloze activities

7. Second language teaching: Audiolingual method • Behaviorist view • Patterned response drill • Focus on specific grammar point • Inductive: learn structures through drills, not explicit instruction of rules • Immediate error correction • Focus on form over meaning

8. Second language teaching: Content-based methods • Language through content • ESL: academic reading challenges • Passive – de-emphasize the subject • Comparatives and logical connectors (if…then; not only…but also) – separated from each other • Modals – indicate subtle differences in meaning • VP with PP – additional information • Relative clauses – additional information • (p. 239 vs. p. 247)