Can Grammar Be Taught?

Posted: June 04, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11366" align="alignright"]© slaved - Fotolia.com[/caption]Twitter, Facebook, and other social media avenues have been blamed for causing poor grammar, lack of spelling skills, and not writing well. But is the noticed decline in these areas really the fault of social media and our fast paced world? Maybe not. Perhaps grammar isn't being "taught" properly in school.

[caption id="attachment_11366" align="alignright"]© slaved - Fotolia.com[/caption]Twitter, Facebook, and other social media avenues have been blamed for causing poor grammar, lack of spelling skills, and not writing well. But is the noticed decline in these areas really the fault of social media and our fast paced world? Maybe not. Perhaps grammar isn't being "taught" properly in school.

The BBC recently reported that students in the final year of primary school — equivalent to the fifth grade in the United States — will be required to take a grammar and spelling test (to evaluate teaching effectiveness, not to qualify the students for matriculation). But are grammar and spelling teachable?

Year after year, from early elementary school on, students are subjected to instruction in grammar and spelling. Textbooks and handouts describe and explain the functions of parts of speech and the spelling rules, and students fill out worksheets and take spelling tests. Yet even some highly intelligent, scholastically successful students have difficulty expressing themselves in writing, are unable to identify parts of speech or verb tenses, and can’t spell very well.

Read entire article Can Grammar Be Taught at Daily Writing Tips