Thursday, August 6, 2009 Why I Teach the Parts of Speech
Actually, I wanted to write about phrases and clauses and about
teaching them as adjectives and adverbs. However, that reminded
me how many teachers I’ve run into over the years who disagree
that the names of parts of speech should be taught to students.
I argued with a publisher over this for at least three years,
actually, before being “allowed” to teach the parts of speech in
a textbook for lower-level students. So let me take a brief
diversion to defend this position. The arguments against
teaching the names of the parts of speech are mainly that the
terms are too difficult for students to learn, and further, that
they aren’t helpful. I disagree with both of these arguments.
Minimally, I think students should know noun, pronoun, verb,
adjective, adverb, preposition, and article. With advanced
students I might add in determiner. OK, that’s seven words. Is
that too high a vocabulary load, especially when most of those
concepts exist in the learner’s n