Skip to main content

Language and Grammar


I’m not a fan of grammar books.  In fact, they confuse me no end with all those technical terms such as inchoative verbs and protasis.  As a teacher of English, I’ve always advised my students to hone their linguistic skills by listening, speaking, reading and writing.  We can learn another language just as we learnt our mother tongue: by using the language rather than learning its grammar. 

However, I have had to teach grammar sometimes as part of the academic courses.  I’ve tried my best to make the grammar teaching sound as light and interesting as possible by avoiding jargon as far as possible and focusing on exercises that are relevant to the students’ day-to-day life.  Traditional grammar teaching would be the most boring part of language learning for most students.  And yet, having said all this, I must add that some knowledge of basic grammar always helps us to master the language.

During my recent visit to Delhi, one of my ex-colleagues presented me a set of grammar books she authored.  They belong to a series titled English Skills, Grammar and Composition published by Vishv Books, Delhi.  The books for classes 6 to 8 are written by S. K. Manimekalai, English teacher in one of the reputed schools in NCR. 

A lot of sincere hard work has gone behind the production of these books.  Each topic is covered extensively and systematically.  For example, the chapter on Determiners in the class 8 book covers articles, possessive determiners, demonstrative determiners, distributive determiners, numeral and quantitative determiners and interrogative determiners.  Each category is explained very lucidly with appropriate examples and even illustrations where necessary.  Then there are exercises which will reinforce the student’s learning. 

The books are well designed and the layout is very appealing.  The level gradation for each class is planned very carefully too so that whatever a student learns in class 6, say, is reinforced with more knowledge and skills in the next class, while some new topics are added too. 

In spite of my inborn rebellion against canons and rubrics, I found the books interesting.  They are eminently useful for young students who wish to gain mastery over English.


Labels:

Comments

  1. Dr. Priyanka Shanbhag ShroffMay 15, 2016 at 10:19 PM

    Not only for young students, many others would do well to take a few grammar lessons. What with people considering the SMS language as the new cool, it gets so frustrating to read things that are written in what the writer believes is English! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2016 at 7:08 AM

      Today's SMS has become a new lingo altogether which has its own grammar. Youngsters are picking up that lingo easily while the proper language can be picked up with the same ease provided they want to do it.

      Still a few grammar lessons may be required to clear certain confusions.

      Delete
  2. sunaina sharmaMay 16, 2016 at 3:31 AM

    Grammar is so important for the present generation....everyone seems to be talking in abbreviations these days....no structure....no sentence.....just a word here and a word there and an emoticon in-between.....I cannot teach grammar too, by the way....:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2016 at 7:12 AM

      This is a common complaint now, Sunaina. See Priyanka's comment above. As a teacher I have seen SMS lingo entering into the answers of students - without the emoticons generally, though there are a couple of students who go to that extent too.

      Enjoying literature has gone out of students' life. They don't even want to think about life and its solid issues. Overall there is a superficial attitude towards life. This superficiality is what is reflected in the evolution of the language. The solution is in making students think more seriously, make them read, think, write, discuss... which is what I try to do in the class.

      Delete
  3. Kala RaviMay 16, 2016 at 10:33 AM

    I shudder to think of the sad state of grammar in the current and future generations! They are unaware of basic grammar rules, which is rather put-offing! Thanks for sharing this resource, would like to check it out for my kid!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2016 at 10:42 AM

      Perhaps the education system should take part of the blame. If you see the way grammar is taught and assessed you will understand why students will end up hating grammar.

      Delete
  4. Sneh AsnaniMay 16, 2016 at 1:52 PM

    I think Grammer is important, but at the same time learning English is way easier if you normally read, talk or think in English.. I used to be scared of those grammer books coz I never understood the 100 types of tenses - past participle, present perfect and blah blah..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 16, 2016 at 6:45 PM

      That's precisely what I am saying too. Actually grammar is inborn if you believe Noam Chomsky. It's a question of polishing it up. Read, speak, etc are the natural methods.

      Delete
  5. wingsMay 18, 2016 at 7:58 PM

    Let grammar take wings and explore new ways into the minds of those souls grappling with the complex rules of grammar.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 19, 2016 at 8:15 AM

      A prankish question: which came first - language or grammar? :)

      Delete
  6. wingsMay 19, 2016 at 9:31 AM

    Need to communicate! Gestures, sign language, pictographs, language. .... last Grammar! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. wingsMay 19, 2016 at 9:31 AM

    Need to communicate! Gestures, sign language, pictographs, language. .... last Grammar! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Carly VinebergOctober 30, 2020 at 5:33 PM

    I can't thank you enough for this content . I learnt so much from this article. Thank you for such a thorough explanation on English Grammar . You are truly impressive, thanks for sharing Different Types of Sentences with us . Keep up the good work .

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

The Second Crucifixion

  ‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita:                         For certain is death for the born                         and certain is birth for the dead;                         Therefore over the inevitable                         Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand
6 comments
Read more

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation
4 comments
Read more

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv
10 comments
Read more

Hate Politics

Illustration by Copilot Hatred is what dominates the social media in India. It has been going on for many years now. A lot of violence is perpetrated by the ruling party’s own men. One of the most recent instances of venom spewed out by none other than Mithun Chakraborty would shake any sensible person. But the right wing of India is celebrating it. Seventy-four-year-old Chakraborty threatened to chop the people of a particular minority community into pieces. The Home Minister Amit Shah was sitting on the stage with a smile when the threat was issued openly. A few days back, a video clip showing a right-winger denying food to a Muslim woman because she refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’ dominated the social media. What kind of charity is it that is founded on hatred? If you go through the social media for a while, you will be astounded by the surfeit of hatred there. Why do a people who form the vast majority of a country hate a small minority so much? Hatred usually comes from some
8 comments
Read more