Re: Spelling and Grammar in our e-mails

["RAUBER, JOEL" <JOEL_RAUBER@SDSTATE.EDU>]

Mike wrote in part:


. . .
> I hope that does not launch us onto a tangent about the use
> of data.  My
> main point here, which I am sure John understands, is that it is
> difficult to explain student errors without simply crossing out the
> wrong word(s) and writing the correct word(s).  Time is part of the
> problem, but their lack of knowledge about parts of speech, etc. is a
> bigger problem.

. . .

I am young enough that my high school training invoked a method referred to
as "new English", apparently a plan of english study that was patterned off
of "new math".  We didn't do much of the sentence diagramming that my elders
used to tell apocryphal stories about.  So there were quite a large number
of holes in my grammar education.  I found that studying foreign languages
helped.

I consider the taking of foreign languages as one of the better antidotes
for this, one starts to find out about the usefullness of grammar when you
study a foreign language as an "adult" learner.

Joel Rauber