Lots of people have got to this page by searching for “Does Grammar Matter”, not unreasonably. If this is your interest, I would propose the following 2 links as being worth the read. They are not long, the references to research are towards the end.
http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2036828
http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2318984
If not, and Blogs be the food of love, read on.
For those fans of this Blog (someone, anyone?), you will know that the importance of Grammar is a subject I keep returning to – evidence of a master storyteller maintaining coherence between a series of disparate but inter-related threads. Contrast the elegance of this to other texts, where a similar device is caused by the author becoming slightly obsessed.
Grammar has suddenly become an awful lot more important. To me, personally. Hot on the heels of our science audits we have grammar audits. Fail it, and you’re given remedial classes. Fail it again and you’re out. It’s the educational equivalent to 2 strikes and out. I’m somewhat uneasy about college processes being based on George Bush’s law and order policy.
We’ve just had our tests, and I’m not optimistic. We haven’t been given the results, but the lecturer did let me know when the remedial lessons are. I’m not sure whether the use of subtlety is something she’s going to be teaching us.
Neither my confidence nor humour has been improved by readers pointing out the lack of basic grammar in this blog, its kind of living witness to my unsuitability for the profession. But I’m sure that it is meant in the spirit of constructive criticism, so I am grateful. I’d be even more grateful if one of you could do something really useful, like sit the test for me. You will of course need to go in disguise. To give you an idea, I look something like a cross between Imran Khan and Brad Pitt, on a good hair day.
And for any psychoanalysts out there, maybe you could help me with a dream I had last night. I was running down the road, being chased by a posse of mean looking apostrophes. A semicolon appears, turns into a snake, which I trip over and fall down into a full stop. I wake up before I hit the bottom. I’m glad, the bottom of a full stop has a ring of finality.
On top of the grammar, we’ve got our phonics test next week. Phonology, graphology, di- and tri-graphs, blend, onset & rime, morpheme, word stems/roots, dipthongs, affixes. It also includes etymology – don’t get me started on etymology. And that’s just English.
If there are any psychoanalysts out there, maybe we could meet on a more formal basis.
