Surban, Kate M.

BSED English- 2nd Year

Teaching and Assessment of Grammar
Traditional Grammar

Learning Outcomes:

 To identify the Traditional Grammar

 To know the significance of Traditional Grammar
 To know the the Negative Effects of Teaching Traditional Grammar

What is traditional grammar?

 Traditional grammar defines what is and is not correct in the English language, not
accounting for culture or modernizing in favor of maintaining tradition. Because it is
fairly rigid and rooted in the ways of the past, traditional grammar is often considered
outdated and regularly criticized by experts. Even so, many children learn this proper,
historical form of grammar today.

History
 Among the earliest studies of grammar are descriptions of Sanskrit, called vyākaraṇa.
The Indian grammarian Pāṇini wrote the Aṣṭādhyāyī, a descriptive grammar of Sanskrit,
sometime between the 4th and the 2nd century BCE. This work, along with some
grammars of Sanskrit produced around the same time, is often considered the beginning
of linguistics as a descriptive science, and consequently wouldn't be considered
"traditional grammar" despite its antiquity. Although Pāṇini's work was not known in
Europe until many centuries later, it is thought to have greatly influenced other grammars
produced in Asia, such as the Tolkāppiyam, a Tamil grammar generally dated between
the 2nd and 1st century BCE.

Who founded Traditional Grammar?

 As early as the fifth century BC, a grammar was developed in Sanskrit, but what has
become known as Traditional Grammar was conceived by the early Greeks and they also
were the first to establish an alphabetic writing system.

Significance of the Traditional Grammar

 The literature has overwhelmingly revealed traditional grammar instruction does not
effectively improve students writing. The findings of this study have reiterated that gap in
isolated grammar instruction and writing proficiency. Consequently, the English
community needs to reevaluate their pedagogical approach to grammar. Teachers need to
examine and articulate why grammar is taught within the English Language Arts.

A Prescriptive Approach
 Prescriptive forms of grammar like traditional grammar are governed by strict rules. In
the case of traditional grammar, most of these were determined a long time ago. While
 some professionals uphold prescriptivism and the goals of traditional grammar, others
deride them.
The Negative Effects of Teaching Traditional Grammar
 It is clear that traditional grammar is a polarizing subject for experts, but how does it
really affect students? George Hillocks explains some of the drawbacks of school
grammar in practice: "The study of traditional school grammar (i.e., the definition of
parts of speech, the parsing of sentences, etc.) has no effect on raising the quality of
student writing.

The Persistence of Traditional Grammar

 Traditional grammar persists despite many opponents and questionable benefits. Why?
This excerpt from Working with Words explains why traditional grammar is perpetuated.
"Why do the media cling to traditional grammar and its sometimes-outdated rules?
Mainly because they like the prescriptive approach of traditional grammar rather than the
descriptive approach of structural and transformational grammar .

From Traditional Grammar to Sentence Grammar

 David Crystal wasn't the first person to call attention to the age of traditional grammar
foundations, using this fact to argue against its implementation. Linguist John Algeo
coined the second major development in grammar teaching, brought on by growing
opposition to traditional grammar, sentence grammar. "The first English grammars were
translations of Latin grammars that had been translations of Greek grammars in a
tradition that was already some two-thousand years old.

A Model for Grammar Instruction

 A semester model for grammar instruction could be as follows: At the beginning of the
semester, the teacher would give the class a weekly writing prompt. This prompt would
be the same for each student, and it would require the student to compose a response.
This is what the teacher, then, uses to gather data about his or her students.

Summary
 Linguists, along with many English faculty, would rather have students study language
with a descriptive approach that includes the analysis of real samples of a mixture of
English dialect varieties, not just the prescribed, and sometimes inconsistent, prestige
forms. Linguists or teachers using a descriptive approach say that it allows students to
investigate language on a deeper level, enabling students to see the system at work,
instead of teaching them isolated prescriptive and proscriptive rules based on Latin, a
dead language no longer in flux as English constantly is.