21 Kicks at the Grammar Horse Response

There were quite a few points that I came to an agreement with in “21 Kicks at the Grammar Horse” article. The article did throw question a few issues that many prefer not to address that deal the fact of why students to do not retain the grammar rules and information taught to them well (not verbatim): Are the students mentally ready for what we present in class, are they cognitively able to comprehend grammar at the level presented to them, have they had all necessary teaching before hand to be at a level to understand what is going on? These were good things to consider. The article also mentioned that grammar is not a separate subject, but that “grammar should =draw from and feed into writing, reading, listening, and speaking programs.” I also agree that modern methods are required for modern grammar in order to reach these modern students of ours. The article also touched on inductive teaching and the inductive approach, and it did give the reader a good idea of what the inductive approach was about. I do want to read on the inductive approach a bit more as a result of getting a taste of what it is about from Fraser and Hudson’s article. Fraser and Hudson also mentioned that it is necessary to distinguish between grammar and linguistics. It is necessary to clarify dialects for students as well as standard English. The question came up, how should a teacher teach grammar and “teach as little as possible” was the given answer. I do agree with that especially because as teachers we should remember “in grammar just teach students to control language.” The grammar process Fraser and Hudson listed at the end of the article was incubation, generalization, shaping, polishing, and editing. I found this to be an affective article.