The educational authority did not eliminate grammar teaching altogether in
the 1980s. Rather, it advocated communicative language teaching and
teaching grammar for the purpose of communication. This might have been
wrongly interpreted as doing away with grammar teaching by various parties
including certain schools and teachers.
Personally, I remember starting reading English novels back in P.3.
I began with 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' at a time when a TV drama series featuring
the strife between the North and the South of the U.S.A. culminating in the
Civil War was broadcast. Teachers at school had us read books like
Tom Sawyer and I also became a fan of Agatha Christie, the Queen of Crime. Remember the movies Murder on the Orient Express and
Death on the Nile? Teachers also did a good job getting us to learn a
whole host of proverbs and 'collective nouns'. I should thank my P.5 Chinese
and English teacher for her phonics drills...
Grammar learning remains important. I would recommend studying with
established texts like the latest editions of English Grammar in Use (the
current edition has even got a bonus CD) and Practical English Usage. While I
acquired sentence structures in my teens largely through reading English, the books Practical English Grammar and Practical English Usage helped cleared
many confusions I had about grammar and usage when I was at Lower Six.
When I graduated from college, my first job involved a lot of English writing
and the COBUILD came in very useful.
Sorry for not delivering my ideas in unity as I was sharing my thoughts and
memories about learning English as they came to mind...
[ 本帖最後由 白貓兒 於 2006-9-13 05:57 AM 編輯 ]
