17.580, Review: Textbooks/Lang Education: Williams (2005)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-17-580. Tue Feb 21 2006. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 17.580, Review: Textbooks/Lang Education: Williams (2005)

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What follows is a review or discussion note contributed to our 
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discussion, look for books announced on LINGUIST as "available 
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1)
Date: 20-Feb-2006
From: Tim Hadley < tim.hadley at ttu.edu >
Subject: The Teacher's Grammar Book, Second Edition 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 19:16:52
From: Tim Hadley < tim.hadley at ttu.edu >
Subject: The Teacher's Grammar Book, Second Edition 
 

AUTHOR: Williams, James D. 
TITLE: The Teacher's Grammar Book
SUBTITLE: 2nd edition
PUBLISHER: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
YEAR: 2005
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/16/16-2751.html 

Tim Hadley, Department of English, Texas Tech University

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

According to its own Preface, The Teacher's Grammar Book ''is 
designed for students who are preparing to become English or 
language arts teachers, as well as for credentialed teachers who want 
to know more about grammar'' (ix). In this regard it would also be of 
benefit to anyone else who wants a general overview (or review) of 
traditional English grammar and a few other contemporary 
approaches to grammar.

Williams divides his content into three logical sections. The first 
section, containing chapters 1 and 2, provides what Williams calls ''a 
short history of grammar'' (a more precise title might be ''a short 
history of the background and study of English grammar'') and an 
introduction to teaching grammar. Section two, chapters 3-6, contains 
a survey and discussion of four prominent types of grammar that 
teachers are likely to face and/or use in the classroom: traditional 
grammar (chapter 3), phrase structure grammar (chapter 4), 
transformational-generative/Chomskyan grammar (chapter 5), and 
cognitive grammar (chapter 6). The final section, chapter 7, discusses 
dialects, especially Black English and Chicano English, their impact on 
students' writing, and how teachers can be better prepared to deal 
with these issues in their classrooms.

The second edition differs from the first in several ways. Chapters 1 (A 
Short History of Grammar) and 2 (Teaching Grammar) are new, 
providing more background and a better connection with pedagogical 
issues than before. The chapters on phrase structure grammar, 
transformational-generative grammar, and cognitive grammar have all 
undergone significant revision, primarily in the direction of making 
them both more simplified and also in connecting them more closely to 
writing pedagogy. Williams has also expanded the discussion of 
Chicano English in the chapter on dialects, and has added a brief 
exploration of code switching. Chapters are also sprinkled liberally 
with ''Teaching Tips,'' ''Applying Key Ideas,'' and ''Suggested Activities'' 
to help teachers transfer the lessons from the passive book page to 
the students' active learning involvement and assimilation. The result 
is a more up-to-date, detailed treatment of historical and pedagogical 
issues, packaged in a practical, usable textbook that will speak to the 
concerns of teachers in the 21st century. 

EVALUATION OF THE BOOK

There are a number of good things about the way Williams 
approaches his task. First, his survey of the history of the study and 
teaching of Greek and Latin grammar, offered as a background and 
prelude to a proper understanding of English grammar, serves a 
valuable purpose both in providing needed information and in making 
an important philosophical statement: The basis of our language and 
our understanding of its grammar--indeed of our entire intellectual 
tradition--lies first and foremost with the Greeks and the Romans. 
Though Williams will later, correctly, move away from Latin grammar 
as the basis for a correct understanding of English grammar, he wisely 
here, at the first, provides teachers with a solid grounding in the 
ancient facts about our linguistic roots. 

A second strength of this book is Williams' insistence that prospective 
English or language arts teachers must know as much about grammar 
as possible. This is evident both in his chapter on teaching grammar 
(chapter 2) and in his coverage (chapters 3-6) of four major types of 
grammar that teachers need to be familiar with to properly instruct 
students in the 21st-century classroom. Though he later softens his 
emphasis somewhat confusingly and even perhaps contradictorily 
(see below), he is nevertheless correct to criticize English degree 
programs that focus on literature to the near exclusion of grammar, 
and even some English education degrees that require only one 
college-level grammar course of future teachers who will be expected 
to guide students through the maze of the English language. It is no 
wonder that Williams' book has found a ready audience, and thus the 
need for a second edition, among such under-prepared teachers.

A third major value in Williams' approach is his actual presentation of 
the four major types of grammar--traditional, phrase structure, 
transformational-generative, and cognitive--that he thinks teachers 
should know to be effective in the language arts or writing classrooms 
of today. In chapters ranging from 32-64 pages in length, he reviews 
the salient features of these grammars in ways that can be valuable 
introductions for those who have not studied a topic (say, e.g., 
Chomsky's transformational-generative grammar, chapter 5) or helpful 
reviews of topics that are more familiar (such as traditional grammar, 
chapter 3). I don't know of many teachers, at least among those who 
are not professional linguists, who would not benefit from reading 
Williams' excellent review of traditional grammar. Since English is, for 
most of us, our native language, we tend to internalize the grammar 
and be actually less familiar with the structure, terminology, and rules 
than we need to be to explain the concepts to learners. Reading and 
reviewing an excellent short review like Williams has provided will 
expose the gaps in our knowledge and help us to rid ourselves of silly 
myths like ''Put a comma where there is a natural pause in the 
sentence.'' Williams does an excellent job of exposing and slaying 
many of these old nonsensical usage dragons.

Having praised the excellent aspects of Williams' book, we must now 
look briefly at some of the problem areas. These occur primarily in the 
chapter on teaching grammar, where Williams, like too many before 
him, depends too strongly on and accepts too uncritically the 
questionable conclusions of Braddock et al.'s 1963 report (hereafter 
referred to as Braddock) and Hillocks' 1986 meta-analysis, both of 
which strongly condemned grammar as useless in improving writing. 
Braddock, after all, is the report that contained the statement 
that ''teaching formal [traditional] grammar has . . . a harmful effect on 
the improvement of writing'' (pp. 37-38). Williams surprisingly cites this 
assessment as ''strong'' (p. 27), and then later states categorically 
that ''grammar instruction does not lead to improved writing'' (p. 31), 
showing that he has fully accepted Braddock's view even though it 
was based primarily on only one obscure British study (Harris's 1962 
University of London dissertation) that was subsequently ignored in 
Britain. It remains a mystery how such a work became the basis for 40 
years of American K-16 policy, but to be fair, Williams is not alone in 
having swallowed Braddock's conclusions without being aware of how 
little lay behind them, though Tomlinson pointed these things out in 
1994. The same is true for Hillocks' 1986 meta-analysis, where the 
grammar section was based on only three studies. Again, most people 
are probably not aware of how little foundation there was for Hillocks' 
condemnation of grammar teaching, his conclusions seeming to agree 
with the received wisdom of Braddock's earlier report. But Williams 
presents himself as an expert, and his audience of fledgling teachers 
will have even less knowledge of this historical background than he 
does. Misleading them on such an important matter will seriously 
handicap their budding careers.

When he sets out to explain why, as he see it, grammar instruction 
does not lead to improved writing, Williams creates additional 
problems. He first states that ''most of the errors we find in the writing 
of native English speakers are not related to grammar'' (p. 30). This is 
explained in two ways. First, he points out that in surveys of error, 
such as that made by Connors and Lunsford (1988), punctuation was 
cited as the most frequent error. The implication is clear (but 
incorrect): punctuation has nothing to do with grammar. But it is not 
possible to discuss most punctuation errors without reference to the 
syntax which produced the errors in the first place. Williams, perhaps 
without realizing it, falls into this trap later when he says, ''Before 
students can master comma use, they need to understand clauses 
and phrases'' (!) (p. 86). Then, like many others before him, Williams 
creates an artificial distinction between grammar and usage when 
discussing error. He says that ''the most serious errors students make 
in their writing involve conventions of usage, not grammar'' (p. 31). But 
it is also not possible to relegate areas that most people would clearly 
identify as grammar to usage, as he does when he says agreement 
between pronouns and antecedents is a usage issue rather than a 
grammar issue (p. 66). 

This leads him, ultimately, to make a very strange statement: ''Thus, 
grammar itself does not lead to better writing, but grammar study give 
us tools that allow for more effective teaching of writing'' (p. 41). But if 
grammar study makes us more effective teachers of writing, would that 
not then make our students better writers? That is, if we teach writing 
more effectively, does that not logically imply that our students are 
becoming better writers? And if it is grammar teaching that is leading 
us to be more effective teachers of writing, what is it about the 
teaching of grammar that is helping us to be better teachers but is not 
helping our students to become better writers--indeed, is actually 
harming them in the process? None of this makes one bit of sense. I 
think this illustrates the difficulty one gets into when one tries to adopt 
the prevailing anti-grammar dogma and still teach and believe that 
grammar is important. The transparent attempt to dismiss grammar 
from the writing classroom, so blatant in the work of the anti-
grammarites of the past 40 years, is surprising to find in one who 
otherwise champions the value of grammar in so many ways.

One might also quibble about other minor things, such as Williams's 
choice of the grammars that he reviews. There is nothing wrong with 
emphasizing tradition, phrase structure, T-G, and cognitive grammar. 
But one might also wonder why he does not include other worthwhile 
approaches, such as Halliday's systemic functional grammar. Though 
perhaps not as well known as the others, it offers at least as much 
promise for systematic and analytical understanding of English, 
especially from a discourse point of view.

However, none of these criticisms negates the fact that The Teacher's 
Grammar Book, 2nd Edition is in most ways an excellent work of 
scholarship, one that will serve and benefit English and language arts 
teachers of all levels training and knowledge. As such it deserves a 
wide audience.

REFERENCES 

Braddock, R., Lloyd-Jones, R., & Schoer, L. (1963). Research in 
written composition. Champaign, IL: National Council of Teachers of 
English.

Connors, R., & Lunsford, A. (1988). Frequency of formal errors in 
current college writing, or Ma and Pa Kettle do research. College 
Composition and Communication 39, 395-409.

Halliday, M., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An Introduction to Functional 
Grammar. 3rd ed. London: Arnold.

Harris, R. (1962). An experimental inquiry to the functions and value 
of formal grammar in the teaching of English, with special reference to 
the teaching of correct written English to children aged twelve to 
fourteen. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of London.

Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions 
for teaching. Urbana: IL: National Conference on Research in English.

Tomlinson, D. (1994). Errors in the research into the effectiveness of 
grammar teaching. English in Education 28(1), 20-26. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Tim Hadley is a Ph.D. candidate in Technical Communication and 
Rhetoric at Texas Tech University (USA), where he has taught 
courses in English composition and technical writing. His research 
interests include writing pedagogy and the teaching of grammar and 
style in conjunction with writing.





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