Reports results of random survey of German instructors on their attitudes toward teaching adjective endings in a proficiency-oriented climate. A majority consider teaching the adjective endings difficult as well as important, especially in four-year high school and two-year college programs. (LET)

This study investigated (1) whether teaching applied linguistics can help high school students learn to write more effectively, and (2) which approach, linguistic or traditional, is more effective in teaching composition. Twelfth grade male students (188) in a private metropolitan high school were randomly assigned to six sample groups, fairly…

Provides a historical sketch of grammar study since the Romans to identify assumptions about grammar inherited or developed by nineteenth-century educators, who passed them on in ways modern educators might not recognize. Argues that the effect of this philosophical line is that the teaching of traditional grammar still has public and…

Discusses the continuing controversy over how to teach grammar. Finds that the traditional, structural, and transformational approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, with none clearly better than the others. Suggests that the teaching of grammar, while not the key to improvement in written English, will always have a place in the…

The author makes a case for teaching traditional prescriptive grammar for 10 weeks at the beginning of the tenth grade. (JM)

A project to investigate the effects on the language development of secondary school pupils of a study of transformational grammar as represented in the Oregon English Curriculum involved 250 students in a large, coeducational high school near Auckland, New Zealand. The students were divided into three matched groups who studied different English…

The authors review studies which suggest that sentence combining exercises might improve composition in ways that traditional grammar has long been alleged to do, particularly in the areas of sentence structure, usage, ideas, and style. Implications are drawn for grammar instruction in the middle school. (Author/SJL)

Changes in concepts of usage as illustrated in 111 high school English language textbooks published from 1923 to 1963 formed the subject of this study. The textbooks were placed in one of four groups according to publication date: 1923-1940, 1941-1952, 1953-1958, and 1959-1963. The purpose of the grouping was to determine whether certain usage…

Describes a teaching method that uses the student's growing need to use the language as motivation. (CRH)

A review of the various grammatical traditions from traditional grammar through structural linguistics to transformational grammar points out that traditional and transformational grammar are neither mutually exclusive nor entirely contradictory. Implications drawn from modern inquiry include the necessity for reading and writing teachers to guide…

Twelve high school curriculum guides for English grammar, rated superior by a committee of the National Council of Teachers of English, were examined. An effort was made to define the grammatical position of each guide as agreeing with school grammar, scholarly traditional grammar, structural linguistic grammar, or transformational generative…

The meanings of the words grammar and linguistics have undergone a multitude of changes in the last years, but teachers should continue to teach linguistics and formal grammar in the schools. (JH)

This study summarizes the kinds of English grammar currently taught in American secondary schools and describes the effects of curriculum proposals by scholars upon the teaching of language and composition. A survey of grammar from classical Greek and Roman times to the present precedes a description of specific types of grammar (e.g.,…

A program of new approaches to teaching composition, funded under an ESEA Title 3 grant, led English teachers at Woodridge High School, Peninsula, Ohio, to test two theories: (1) that no significant difference in writing skills would exist between students exposed to the traditional, formal grammar course and those taught composition through the…

Produced in response to a school board's directive to develop a plan for implementing a standardized curriculum in the basic subjects on a district-wide basis, this guide contains instructional objectives for the area of ninth grade English. Included in the guide are (1) an overview of objectives for eighth, ninth, and tenth grade English; (2) an…