Thursday, December 6, 2012

Teaching English Grammar

Today, I took an advanced grammar class, and we learned about modals to express degrees of certainty. While taking the grammar class, I found that my teacher was teaching wrong to us. He explained an example sentence, "We should solve it soon.," on the textbook and said, "Hmm..., should + base form isn't future speculation. I think you can always use it as present advice but not future speculation." I thought the example sentence was used as future speculation, and there are many ways to say in future speculation. I asked him, "How about "you should do well on the test." Is this sentence advice or .... " He said, "Oh, you're right! It's future speculation! Thank you." I sometimes corrects my teacher in this class. Because I have learned grammar for three years, I think I know most grammar rules and am picky about grammar. From a teacher's point of view I think I am an annoying student. :P While ESL students need to understand grammar to use English, Americans can use English without understanding grammar. While ESL students learn English grammar from their mistakes, Americans don't need to learn it because they don't usually make mistakes. That's why sometimes American teachers teach us with their intuition without logically explaining it. I often think being English grammar teacher is not easy for Americans. Teaching English vocabularies and writing are no problem though. It's because it is the same as that I can't teach Japanese grammar even though I am Japanese. After class, I asked him about writing assignments for extra credit. He told me that I wouldn't need to do that assignment because my grade would be A without extra credit. I guess my grade might be A, but I wanted to push myself. I just wanted to do my best to get the highest score as possible, but I lost my willpower.





   Today's Vocabulary
・ intuition : noun /

  1. 直感(力)◆あるものやことについて、考えたり知覚したりする前に、従って思考や感覚に頼らないで分かること、またはその能力。
  2. 〔直感で得られた〕知識、洞察
  3. 《哲学》直観◆思索によらずに直接に対象を捉えること。
with one's intuition : 直感で[的に] 
     ex) make a purchase decision with one's intuition : 直感で[的に]購入を決める

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