Useless grammar is not loved by me
I feel sorry for my poor students and their comprehension of English when their textbooks force them to express things in labour-intensive constructions that disadvantage them by encouraging them to see foreign language communication as a mere matter of translating from the Japanese and leave them with extraneous and confusing grammatical baggage that prevents them from making snappy sentences on the spot. The latter problem is exacerbated by the tendency for textbook progression to vastly outspeed the gaining of proficiency in basic spoken English. The former problem results from the misguided attempt to make the kids learn grammar structures that most resemble the Japanese way of expressing things. Like the use of katakana as a 'bridge' to communication, this almost always cauterizes the capacity of young brains to soak up new ideas, and similarly gums up the tendency of kids to express things in the most efficient manner possible, the little lazy geniuses (genii...who cares, I'm arguing here for a take-it-easy approach to grammar).For instance, the passive voice and inappropriate use of copulas make sentences a lot more indirect, which mirrors the tendency of Japanese to eschew direct objects and mask the subject of an action. Rather than say 'We are holding a party this Saturday', a proper Japanese invitation will say something more along the lines of 'This Saturday it becomes that a party will be held'. I accept my faulty knowledge of Japanese grammar here- it still flummoxes the life out of me, especially with the gradations of indirectness that occur with changing levels of politeness. But the general idea is that subjects are often masked. It's ok to say 'ringo ga suki desu'- literally 'apple for-is like' to mean 'I like apples', with the subject 'watashi' omitted. Removing the subject from the sentence, or reducing its importance, has clear linguistic concomitants in a society that downplays the importance of the individual, and people often express things not in terms of what people do to things, but what happens to things.
I'm tripping over myself. I didn't mean to turn this into a tirade, and I am certainly not the last authority on this issue. However, I am constantly bummed out by the way kids are made to spend hours converting sentences like 'His name is Robert' to 'We call him Robert' to 'He is called Robert by everyone'. The first key sentence in the 2nd year textbook is 'Braille is used by many people'. Such a dull sentence. People use Braille! The people must be preserved! It is just one step to saying 'Braille is used'. Yes, we know.
My own sentence conversion- 'In the interests of preventing erosion, the rivers and mountainsides and coastlines were concreted over'....'Construction companies suck our arses and pork-up our barrels so we concreted everything over'.
Hmph.
I'm tripping over myself. I didn't mean to turn this into a tirade, and I am certainly not the last authority on this issue. However, I am constantly bummed out by the way kids are made to spend hours converting sentences like 'His name is Robert' to 'We call him Robert' to 'He is called Robert by everyone'. The first key sentence in the 2nd year textbook is 'Braille is used by many people'. Such a dull sentence. People use Braille! The people must be preserved! It is just one step to saying 'Braille is used'. Yes, we know.
My own sentence conversion- 'In the interests of preventing erosion, the rivers and mountainsides and coastlines were concreted over'....'Construction companies suck our arses and pork-up our barrels so we concreted everything over'.
Hmph.