Re: Grammar in HS (Was: Re: Argument Structures)

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> nicole perrin wrote:
> > Maybe this is a silly question, but is grammar of one's native langauge
> > taught in countries other than the US?  Because here almost everyone
> > grows up without knowing even what subject and object are.
>
> Where's "here" for you, because that's CERTAINLY not my experience.  I
> vividly remember detesting English class.  :-)  Of course, it was
> largely rote learning of what subjects and stuff were, and being
> constantly told that the way we normally spoke was wrong, that in itself
> made me detest it, I didn't like being told how to talk.
Here for me is southwestern Connecticut.  It's not that I miss having
been taught prescriptivism, per se, but that in French class when my
teacher tries to explain direct object pronouns no one gets it because
no one knows what a direct object *is*.  Or an indirect object.  Forget
trying to learn cases in German or Latin, it's almost impossible.  The
foreign language teachers expect you to know the difference between
subject and object, so they can say "with the subject use nominative,
with the direct object use accusative" but that's just not enough
explanation for someone who not only has no idea what subject and object
are, but also has no idea that there'd be any reason for another
language to differentiate between the two.  That's why no one knows when
to use "whom," either.

Nicole