There are books for everything |
Does reading really help with writing? |
Others might argue against this,and say that high school students should have already learned everything and should be able to write as they speak in college. However, some argue that colleges should allow the students to write how they write, since they know some slang.
“If we teach standardized, handbook grammar as if it is the only ‘correct’ form of grammar, we are teaching in cooperation with a discriminatory power system” (Patricia A. Dunn and Kenneth Lindblom, English Journal, January, 2003). True as this statement may be, it fails to recognize that English is a language used for communication. By "correcting" someone's English, we are not discriminating against them, instead, we are trying to teach them how to use it correctly. This is also done to improve their writing skills which will not only helps with communication overall, but also in important English assignments where students are graded on how well they are able to write a paper.
The teaching methods described in What Should Colleges Teach? seem very interesting, especially asking students to turn a three-word sentence such as “Jane likes cake” into a 100-word sentence without losing control of the basic structure and then explain, word-by-word, what they did. Another technique discussed was dividing the class into groups of four or five and asking each group to create its own language complete with a lexicon, and a grammar capable of conveying the distinctions (of number, tense, mood, etc.) conveyed by English grammatical forms. And at the end of the semester each presents a text in its language and teaches the class how to translate it to English and how to translate English sentences into the new language created by the group. These all seem like great ways to improve writing skill, as well as keep students engaged in what they are learning. But as to answer the the question, "What should colleges teach?" , I believe they should teach students whatever they may not know and to help them with anything they don't quite understand, as everyone learns at a different pace from one another. With that students will be well prepared in college when it comes to writing. Also when you fish for reading,writing, and spelling we all become better at the English language.
I agree with the idea of understanding how language works - I've been speaking English my entire life, and I never learned how to think about English until after I studied another language.
ReplyDeleteThat said, what about people coming to college in America with English as a second language? I finally understand how complicated English can be, but I still get the benefit of being a native speaker. Shouldn't there be ways for colleges to help non-native speakers?