The
movie Grammar revolution describes the debate between the two different set of
rules in English Grammar. Descriptive and Prescriptive Grammar. Prescriptive
rules are rules made by grammarians and language teachers, which give
guidelines about how a language should be written or spoken. An example of
prescriptive grammar: To whom did you give the money? Instead of: Who did you
give the money to? The first sentence is correct in a prescriptive view because
you should avoid ending a sentence with a preposition. The second sentence is
correct in a descriptive view because it is used in the everyday English spoken
language.
Another approach to grammar is as I have
mentioned is a Descriptive view, in contrary to prescriptive view where rules
and norms are very important for the way you speak or write. If you have a
descriptive view, you are more susceptible to breaking some of the rules that
is not used in the spoken form of the language. A descriptive view is not without
its rules, but students are not being thought how to string sentences correctly
together by the correct rules. Students learn it by intuition, so most of them
learn it by reading and listening.
Some of the arguments against Standard English in
school is that is straining on the creativity of the students, if students had
to learn all the rules in prescriptive grammar, they wouldn’t be able to
express themselves creatively. Learning grammar also confuses and frustrates
students. Another argument is that students learn grammar by reading English. They
also mention in the movie that removing Standard English from the school system
made the social differences less significant. Those who mastered Standard
English would not be looked upon as better than those who did not master it.
The arguments for grammar teaching is giving
students a greater tool to use when they get older, if you are good at writing
you might also have a lot more career possibilities the if aren’t good at
writing.
My own opinion about teaching grammar is students
are always going to have an advantage knowing Standard English. If they need to
know formal English in a future profession, it might be necessary they get an
adequate grammar education in primary school. When I think about my own English
education, there were not a lot of grammar instructions, I read many English magazines
and that was where I learned most of my grammar, so you might say I learned English
in descriptive view. I probably don’t write
good standard English, but it I always found English interesting and I never
found it boring and frustrating.