Traditional grammar instruction is a challenging element of the English curriculum; both students and teachers struggle with the rules and dull nature of grammar. However, understanding grammar is important because students need to understand the language they speak in order to be effective communicators, and teachers provide grammar instruction…

Critically analyzes Paul J. Schafer's advocacy (in Return to Normalcy," Elementary English," vol. 47, no. 5 (May 1970), p. 671--see TE 200 730) of a return to the teaching of traditional grammar. (SW)

Notes the problems associated with integrating grammar study in writing instruction. Provides strategies for such integration, including a syllabus for teaching the verb phrase. (RL)

Intended for students in regular and advanced composition classes, each of the four controlled composition exercises presented in this paper aims at teaching writing style through carefully constructed short passages that concentrate on an isolated problem in style such as parallel structure, relative clauses, pseudo-relative clauses, and…

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…

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

Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, literacy education was based on the solid understanding of grammar. Yet as early as 1923, empirical data indicated that the link between knowledge of grammar and correct use of English was tenuous at best. Despite formidable evidence, some educators still advocate the use of grammar as a…

This paper examines the conflict going on within the community of English instructors concerning the value of instruction in traditional grammer and the past and present effect of certain historical processes and of the forces which shaped those processes on the techniques and methodologies of English instruction. The paper discusses the open and…

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.,…

Traditions and emerging trends in the teaching of linguistics and composition are examined in this collection of papers. Joseph Mersand predicts a future emphasis on the subject of English as a discipline, leading to a more adequate preparation and increased supervision of English teachers and a greater stress in the classroom on written…

An appeal for a reappraisal of the role of linguistics and traditional grammar in the secondary school is made in this article. A case is made for a return to traditional grammar in the teaching of English at all levels prior to graduate school. Five writing models with student assignments based on creative imitation illustrate the kind of…

Research on four troubleseome subjects encountered in English language instruction is examined in this volume. The first problem surveyed, the extent to which a study of Latin can help students master English, yields the conclusion that any benefit from the study of Latin transferable to English is likely to be meager and superficial. An analysis…