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

Pranita a perverted genius

Bulldozer begins its work at Sawan Pranita was a perverted genius. She had Machiavelli’s brain, Octavian’s relentlessness, and Levin’s intellectual calibre. She could have worked wonders if she wanted. She could have created a beautiful world around her. She had the potential. Yet she chose to be a ruthless exterminator. She came to Sawan Public School just to kill it. A religious cult called Radha Soami Satsang Beas [RSSB] had taken over the school from its owner who had never visited the school for over 20 years. This owner, a prominent entrepreneur with a gargantuan ego, had come to the conclusion that the morality of the school’s staff was deviating from the wavelengths determined by him. Moreover, his one foot was inching towards the grave. I was also told that there were some domestic noises which were grating against his patriarchal sensibilities. One holy solution for all these was to hand over the school and its enormous campus (nearly 20 acres of land on the outskirts
10 comments
Read more

Machiavelli the Reverend

Let us go today , you and I, through certain miasmic streets. Nothing will be quite clear along our way because this journey is through some delusions and illusions. You will meet people wearing holy robes and talking about morality and virtues. Some of them will claim to be god’s men and some will make taller claims. Some of them are just amorphous. Invisible. But omnipotent. You can feel their power around you. On you. Oppressing you. Stifling you. Reverend Machiavelli is one such oppressive power. You will meet Franz Kafka somewhere along the way. Joseph K’s ghost will pass by. Remember Joseph K who was arrested one fine morning for a crime that nobody knew anything about? Neither Joseph nor the men who arrest him know why Joseph K is arrested. The power that keeps Joseph K under arrest is invisible. He cannot get answers to his valid questions from the visible agents of that power. He cannot explain himself to that power. Finally, he is taken to a quarry outside the town wher
19 comments
Read more

Levin the good shepherd

AI-generated image The lost sheep and its redeemer form a pet motif in Christianity. Jesus portrayed himself as a good shepherd many times. He said that the good shepherd will leave his 99 sheep in order to bring the lost sheep back to the fold. When he finds the lost sheep, the shepherd is happier about that one sheep than about the 99, Jesus claimed. He was speaking metaphorically. The lost sheep is the sinner in Jesus’ parable. Sin is a departure from the ‘right’ way. Angels raise a toast in heaven whenever a sinner returns to the ‘right’ path [Luke 15:10]. A lot of Catholic priests I know carry some sort of a Redeemer complex in their souls. They love the sinner so much that they cannot rest until they make the angels of God run for their cups of joy. I have also been fortunate to have one such priest-friend whom I shall call Levin in this post. He has befriended me right from the year 1976 when I was a blundering adolescent and he was just one year older than me. He possesse
8 comments
Read more

Nakulan the Outcast

Nakulan was one of the many tenants of Hevendrea . A professor in the botany department of the North Eastern Hill University, he was a very lovable person. Some sense of inferiority complex that came from his caste status made him scoff the very idea of his lovability. He lived with his wife and three children in one of Heavendrea’s many cottages. When he wanted to have a drink, he would walk over to my hut. We sipped our whiskies and discussed Shillong’s intriguing politics or something of the sort while my cassette player crooned gently in the background. Nakulan was more than ten years my senior by age. He taught a subject which had never aroused my interest at any stage of my life. It made no difference to me whether a leaf was pinnately compound or palmately compound. You don’t need to know about anther and stigma in order to understand a flower. My friend Levin would have ascribed my lack of interest in Nakulan’s subject to my egomania. I always thought that Nakulan lived
16 comments
Read more

Octavian the Guru

Octavian was one of my students in college. Being a student of English literature, he had reasons to establish a personal rapport with me. It took me months to realise that the rapport was fake. He was playing a role for the sake of Rev Machiavelli . Octavian was about 20 years old and I was nearly double his age. Yet he could deceive me too easily. The plain truth is that anyone can deceive me as easily even today. I haven’t learnt certain basic lessons of life. Sheer inability. Some people are like that. Levin would say that my egomania and the concomitant hubris prevented my learning of the essential lessons of life. That would have been true in those days when Octavian took me for a farcical ride. By the time that ride was over, I had learnt at least one thing: that my ego was pulped. More than 20 years have passed after that and I haven’t still learnt to manage affairs in the world of people. That’s why I admit my sheer inability to learn some fundamental lessons of life. Th
8 comments
Read more