How do you native people learn the English at school?

Children in English speaking countries learn to speak, read and write English at home as well as at school. In the United States, at least, they are all taught English, which includes grammar. I don't know where you got your ideas, but they're wrong.

Grammar is taught at all levels, firstly by correcting speech and later by analysis and adoption of formal rules. Once someone has a basic speaking ability, they are taught to write, the same as anywhere else and that is when more formal grammar rules are learnt.

This is a huge subject from the point of view of variety and you would be better off googling some actual text books used at school. These can be identified on most government education web sites.

This is an interesting question from the social history point of view because in the UK schools never taught " English grammar" as a separate subject until schooling was compulsory for all social classes (circa 1880). At that point educators adopted the prescriptive techniques modelled on the teaching of Latin in an attempt to "improve standards". However, based on a descriptive concept of "grammar", advocated by Chomsky et al (1957), the conceptof "correct English" has tended to be replaced by "appropriate English" (at least by post Chomsky teachers) despite opposition from the old school prescriptivists. The rise of PC (political correctness) has resulted in the appearance of variety of idiolects even on the BBC, epitomised perhaps by Alan Sugar's, "You was an estate agent wasn't you ?" in his role in the UK version of "Apprentice". (Money talks ? )

As far as ESL is concerned, the question arises as to what function the language learning is to serve. There will obviously be prescriptive models which supply a basic frame of reference, but functional nuances will always elicit the "appropriateness" issue.

I studied grammar in school, but I never really learned it, got it, understood it, until I studied french. That is to say, written grammar, I had no problem speaking or reading and intuitively understand the concept and applying it, however, writting was a chore.
I first remember studying grammar in grade 4. What is a noun, verb etc...

Yes, as in the case of the Latin model above, formal grammar only tends to make pedagogical "sense" when learning a non-native language by prescription.

There was an excellent book we used in university, English Grammar for Students of French. Very, very many of those with whom i took courses and with whom i conversed reported the same experience--that they had never really understood their own grammar until they learned French grammar.

That's basically true, Fansy. By the time native children reach the age of five, they have learned the vast majority of all the structure of English.



Again, you're right. Children don't need to be taught the grammar of English for they know it much much better than their teachers. They need to be taught how to use the register that we use for writing for written English and spoken English are decidedly different things.

Most people have had some instruction in "grammar". The reason that there are those that say they didn't understand the grammar they were taught was because it wasn't a grammar that described the English language.

They were taught prescriptive grammar. The "rules" of prescriptive grammar were made up bits of nonsense derived from faulty analysis of the English language.

Many Americans are largely grammar idiots, having been instructed in the Strunk & White mode. This extends even to college professors, even professors involved in teaching grammar.

But Strunk is not completely to blame, nor is White for the US has a long history of incompetent instruction in English grammar.

Most students from other English speaking countries are also grammar idiots. They've just had the benefit of not being exposed to Strunk & White.




The grammar translation method of learning a language is thee worst method of teaching/learning a language. It creates and perpetuates confusion from the outset. It fossilizes errors in the target language that are all but impossible to erase.

Languages are a relatively easy thing to learn. What students need is practice in a rich and full context. Then the brain takes over and creates a learning that is unsurpassed.

[Did you read my response in your sheltered instruction thread?]

We know this because three year old children are grammatical geniuses yet they don't know the first thing ABOUT grammar, the nouns and verbs, modals, relative pronouns and other such things. They just KNOW grammar.

For an advance learner like you, I recommend,

Michael Swan - Practical English Usage

for sorting out the common mistakes made by EFLs.

For a more grammatical approach,

The Grammar Book - An ESL/EFL Teachers' Course The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL Teacher's Course

(2nd edition) Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman (1999)

Read about it here,

http://www.cc.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/tesl-ej/ej12/r7.html

And for increasing your vocabulary,

The Longman Language Activator

Since the vast majority of even natives speakers' vocabulary is passive, that is, not regularly used in speech and writing, this is an invaluable resource. It is a thesaurus on steroids. Unlike a thesaurus, it doesn't leave a learner hanging wondering about the nuances of similar words. It describes not only the nuance, but the register, the dialects where it's used.

It purpose is to make EFLs use of idiomatic language natural.

How do you native people learn [the] English at school?

'native people' has a connotation of Native Americans. Here, the more idiomatic English use would be 'native speakers'.

No 'the' in this case because it English in a general sense. If you were to further describe a particular English, 'the' would be used.

How do you native speakers learn the English that was described to me by [___] at school?[/i]
The Activator

To make this clearer,

Children don't need to be taught the grammar of English for they know it much much better than their teachers could ever hope to teach it.

There are two parts to "knowing" grammar. There is the intuitive knowledge that every native speaker has about the grammar of their language. Without this intuitive knowledge, speakers couldn't function.

The second is being able to describe how language works. For this a person must do a great deal of study. As a percentage of a given population very few people have much knowledge of grammar and often, many native speakers are unfamiliar with what is in common use in the language.

In terms of functioning well in language, the second type of knowledge, a conscious knowledge of grammar, is of marginal use to native speakers/writers of any language.

Maybe he is looking at Facebook. From there you would think grammar is never taught in our schools.

In reality, Fansy described it more accurately than Setanta, did, GW.

I can't imagine what's on FB that would lead you to think that teaching grammar in your schools might help.