Preserving Our Language: Teaching English Grammar

By Leigh Bortins

Ms. Dearborn: Now lets have our conjugations. Give me the verb to be, potential mood
past perfect tense.

Rebecca: I might have been. Thou mightst have been. He might have been. We might have
been. You might have been. They might have been.

Ms. Dearborn: Give me an example, please.

Rebecca: I might have been glad. Thou mightst have been glad. He, she, or it might have
been glad.

Ms. Dearborn: He or she might have been glad because they are masculine and
feminine, but could it have been glad? asked Miss Dearborn, who was very fond of
splitting hairs.

Rebecca: Why not?

Ms. Dearborn: Because it is neuter gender.

Rebecca: Couldnt we say, The kitten might have been glad if it had known it was not
going to be drowned?

Ye-es, Miss Dearborn answered hesitatingly, never very sure of herself under Rebeccas
fire, but though we often speak of a baby, a chicken, or a kitten as it they are really
masculine or feminine gender, not neuter.

This excerpt from the novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm illustrates the standard of
grammar education that was common to the one-room schoolhouse. In recent years,
instruction in formal principles of grammar has fallen out of favor. I am eager for home-
educating families to revive this lost art so that children can express themselves well when
using the spoken or the written word.
What Is Grammar?
What is grammar anyway? Is it descriptive or prescriptive? In other words, is grammar a
science that describes the way languages function, or is it a detailed set of arbitrary, nit-
picky rules handed down from the grammar gurus on high?
I believe that grammar is descriptive; it describes basic concepts that are commonly found
in all languages (see my July column about foreign languages). One of my favorite
definitions of grammar comes from David Mulroys book The War Against Grammar:
Grammatical terms are part of an orderly set of concepts that describe the organizational
features of all intelligible speech and writing (pg. 3). As a classical home educator, I desire
my students to read and write well so that they can enter into and perhaps even add to the
great conversations that have been going on since the beginning of human history.
Students cannot do this without a solid foundation in the grammar of their own language.
Why Teach Grammar?
There are a number of reasons to teach grammar. First, the systematic study of grammar
teaches students not just proper English but the basic skills needed to learn any language.
Secondly, the ability to analyze sentences allows students to comprehend the language
used in complex texts such as the Declaration of Independence or Shakespeares plays.
Finally, students learn to wield words carefully and effectively so that they can persuade
others of the soundness of their views.
How to Teach Grammar
Grammar is a demanding subject best learned at a young age when students are still
forming their foundational linguistic habits. It must be taught slowly and systematically in a
way that is suitable for the young. When grade school teachers understand basic concepts
and teach them consistently, year after year, they endow their young students with a
valuable foundation.War Against Grammar, pg. 9
Today, instructors and curriculum providers tend to lump together a number of disciplines,
including grammar, under the heading Language Arts. While I agree that language is an
art, it is best to study these disciplines separately, because they have different goals and
teaching methodologies. In fact, using the term language arts demonstrates that our culture
is confused about the goals of these different arts. So, in this article, I am not going to
consider the arts of teaching reading or spelling or basic literary skills, such as teaching
students to identify different genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, prose). Rather, I want to
focus on how home educators can teach the structure of the English language systematically.
As I learned to study grammar with my boys, I began to recognize important patterns of
language that we needed to master.
1
I am going to share a few basic lessons that have
been systematically mastered by students in the fourth through sixth grades.
Parts of Speech
First, students must learn the eight parts of speech: verb, noun, pronoun, interjection,
conjunction, adjective, preposition, and adverb. Students must spend time learning the
basic definitions of each of these parts of speech. Then, once they have mastered the
definitions, they can practice identifying these parts of speech in actual sentences.
I dictate sentences to my children and have them practice the parts of speech by
performing two tasks: labeling the parts of speech above the sentence and diagramming the
sentence. I start with simple sentences, such as Jesus wept, and move on to more complex
sentences such as In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word
was God. It is important to complete both taskslabeling the parts of speech and
diagramming the sentence. If the student can draw a diagram of the sentence, you can be
sure that he clearly understands how each word is being used in that sentence.
Sentence Purposes
Students should also learn the purposes of sentences. There are only fourwhat a relief!
The sentence purposes are declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative.
Declarative sentences are statements of factRobert cleaned his room. The interrogative
statements are questionsDid Robert clean his room? The exclamatory statements express
strong or sudden emotionRobert cleaned his room! Finally, imperative statements express
commandsClean your room. After students have labeled the parts of speech and
diagrammed the dictated sentence, they can identify the sentence purpose.
Sentence Structures
Students should also learn the basic sentence structures. Again, there are only foursimple,
compound, complex, and compound-complex. Before we can examine them, we need to
define a few terms:
An independent clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb and can
stand alone.
A dependent clause also contains a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone.
A simple sentence has one main clause made up of a subject and a verbJesus wept.
A compound sentence contains two independent clausesJesus wept, and He prayed.
A complex sentence contains one independent clause and one dependent clauseJesus
prayed as He knelt in the garden. The clause as He knelt in the garden is a dependent
clause because it cannot stand alone.
The compound-complex sentence requires at least two independent clauses and one
dependent clauseAs he knelt in the garden, Jesus wept, and He prayed.
Students should identify the sentence structure for each dictated sentence.
Sentence Patterns
Students in my classes memorize seven basic sentence patterns that are common to
languages. Although I do not have the space in this article to go into each sentence pattern,
I will give a few examples here:
The first sentence pattern is Subject-Verb (S-V)Jesus wept.
Next, students learn that verbs often transfer their action to a direct objectJesus loved
the little children. In this example, children is the direct object, which receives Jesus love.
Thus, the second sentence pattern is Subject-Verb-Direct Object (S-V-DO).
If the subject transfers an item to a person, the sentence becomes Subject-Verb-Indirect
Object-Direct Object (S-V-IO-DO). An example of this sentence pattern would be as
followsJesus gave mankind salvation. In our example, salvation is the direct object (the
what Jesus gave), and mankind is the indirect object (the to whom Jesus gave).
Again, students will apply these sentence patterns by identifying the pattern of the dictated
sentence.
Marching On
After students have mastered the skills above, they can go on to learn how to conjugate
verbs in English. This is an invaluable skill for learning to conjugate verbs in Latin and other
Romance languages. They can also consider the parts of speech in greater detail, learning
to identify concrete and abstract nouns, degrees of adjectives, verb tenses, and moods, etc.
Endnote:
1. I presented those patterns in the Essentials of the English Language curriculum that
is now used in Classical Conversations communities across the country.

Additional Resources for Grammar
English Grammar Trivium Tables. A handy English grammar reference with parts of
speech, purposes, and patterns all clearly explained. Click here to view a video of
this resource.

Bortins, Leigh A. The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical
Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 (particularly Chapter 5 on Writing).

Mulroy, David. The War Against Grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers,
Inc., 2003.

Wilson, Nancy. Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar.
Moscow, ID: CanonPress, 2004.


Leigh A. Bortins is author of the recently published book The Core: Teaching Your Child
the Foundations of Classical Education. In addition, Ms. Bortins is the founder and CEO
of Classical Conversations, Inc. and host of the weekly radio show, Leigh! At Lunch.
She lectures about the importance of home education nationwide. She lives with her family
in West End, North Carolina. To learn more, visit her website,
http://www.classicalconversations.com/, or her blog,http://www.1smartmama.com/.

Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in
the August 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, the family education magazine.
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