Why Phrase Structure Grammar Should Be Taught in Schools
Department
English & Humanities
Presentation Location
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
Presentation Start Date and Time
8-3-2024 2:00 PM
Presentation End Date and Time
8-3-2024 3:00 PM
Brief Abstract
The presentation focuses on the teaching of Linguistics foundational concepts to the students enrolled in The School of Education programs as well as other Departments who will be future teachers of their respective majors. The main focus is on the Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG) and why it is important to have this component in teacher education. The presentation will cover not just the basics of the introductory ideas of this grammar but the methods and procedures that help develop sentence-tree building techniques and relevant skills. More importantly, the necessity of this conceptual knowledge about language will be explained in greater detail and why some Departments across the country are avoiding teaching this area of Linguistics. The main proposal embedded in the presentation is to make these concepts taught to K-12 students and see its results in the future. There has been some discussion in the literature to develop the basic course of PSG for secondary schools, but the idea has not come to fruition yet. In the conclusions, I will touch on how this kind of knowledge will be helpful in developing the skills relevant not just to academic language but computational linguistics, applied linguistics and other fields that may become a career path for students later enrolling at college. The main part of the presentation will show the main conceptual underpinning of PSG that was developed in 1960s. Specifically, I will show how traditional grammar models still taught at the higher educational institutions lack the same kind of depth in capturing the properties of various constructions as PSG does. One of such examples is syntactically ambiguous structures along with the morphologically and semantically ambiguous ones. Finally, the presentation will explain why there is a resistance towards teaching this grammar to pre-service teachers leaving this content available to only Ivy League or research one universities’ students.
Recommended Citation
Lomashvili, Leila, "Why Phrase Structure Grammar Should Be Taught in Schools" (2024). Faculty Research and Teaching Expo. 3.
https://digitalcommons.shawnee.edu/ffa/Faculty_Presentations_2024/March_8_2024/3
Why Phrase Structure Grammar Should Be Taught in Schools
Clark Memorial Library, Room 207
The presentation focuses on the teaching of Linguistics foundational concepts to the students enrolled in The School of Education programs as well as other Departments who will be future teachers of their respective majors. The main focus is on the Phrase Structure Grammar (PSG) and why it is important to have this component in teacher education. The presentation will cover not just the basics of the introductory ideas of this grammar but the methods and procedures that help develop sentence-tree building techniques and relevant skills. More importantly, the necessity of this conceptual knowledge about language will be explained in greater detail and why some Departments across the country are avoiding teaching this area of Linguistics. The main proposal embedded in the presentation is to make these concepts taught to K-12 students and see its results in the future. There has been some discussion in the literature to develop the basic course of PSG for secondary schools, but the idea has not come to fruition yet. In the conclusions, I will touch on how this kind of knowledge will be helpful in developing the skills relevant not just to academic language but computational linguistics, applied linguistics and other fields that may become a career path for students later enrolling at college. The main part of the presentation will show the main conceptual underpinning of PSG that was developed in 1960s. Specifically, I will show how traditional grammar models still taught at the higher educational institutions lack the same kind of depth in capturing the properties of various constructions as PSG does. One of such examples is syntactically ambiguous structures along with the morphologically and semantically ambiguous ones. Finally, the presentation will explain why there is a resistance towards teaching this grammar to pre-service teachers leaving this content available to only Ivy League or research one universities’ students.