ABSTRACT
Most English and language arts instructors are required to teach grammar at some point, yet few credential programs require them to take a grammar course as part of their degree. Too often, those programs that do require such a course have housed it in an Englishrather than a linguistics-department, which typically lacks the resources to teach any of the developments in grammar that have occurred since the 19th century. As a result, large numbers of newly credentialed teachers are unprepared to teach grammar effectively. The situation is made more acute by the fact that administrators and parents often judge what students are learning about language on the basis of what they consider to be “the basics”: nouns, verbs, prepositions, adjectives, and adverbs. “The basics” are deemed especially important when reports surface periodically of students’ difficulties with writing. Even more problematic is the widespread failure to differentiate between grammar and usage, for most of the errors in writing that are decried by back-to-basics advocates are not related to grammar at all but rather are errors in usage.
