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why schools don't teach grammar?
The research in grammar started with the "prescriptive approach" in the 20s or 30s which tried to map the grammar of English to a framework based on Latin, but soon researchers found that it didn't work because Latin has split infinitives but not English. Soon they began describing English grammar the way they see it and that is the beginning of "descriptive grammar".
So the traditional "grammar drill" approach in learning/teaching English ended somewhere around the 70s. What follows is the "communicative approach" which goes along with "descriptive grammar" as English is based more on a spoken language rather than a written form, like Chinese.
That is when the ED curriculum department changed the entire approach to teaching/learning English in Hong Kong. But what they forgot was English is not a first language in Hong Kong, but a second, if not a foreign language particularly nowadays. Kids don't hear enough English to use the communicative approach, not to mention to be able to speak it in their daily life.
Because of the change in school curriculum, all publishers changed their strategy and publish books using the "new" approach. That is when we begin to have a generation of children not being to learn English as good as their predecessors.
I wrote grammar books for a best-selling publisher over 10 years ago. Even when I wrote it in the mid 90s, I found the syllabus given by the publisher too simple, but I couldn't go against the trend. My book still sells very well now. But what can parents or a small writer do to go against the trend? |
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