advertisement


“I’m looking to get back what I paid”.

English grammar was hardly taught, except in the most rudimentary sense, when I was at school in the 1960s except, ironically, by our German language teachers, who were horrified that we had so little formal knowledge of our own language. Apostrophes are very rarely used in German.
 
English grammar was hardly taught,....... when I was at school in the 1960s except, ironically, by our German language teachers, who were horrified that we had no formal knowledge of our own language.

Yes, the first time I came across tenses was via my teacher of French (he was English!) in the fifties. I've been to and taught at many schools, both junior and secondary, since 1974 and have come to the conclusion that English is not disseminated as it must be to learn another language. I really had no idea of modal verbs, gerunds, conditionals, tense structure and phrasal verbs etc. until I started teaching E.F.L.

That the vast majority of students above intermediate level also knew the grammatical formulae made me aware of the difference in language teaching here and (many places) abroad.
 


advertisement


Back
Top