Rethinking Grammar by Andrew Walkley & Hugh Dellar

This video is basically a transcript of a talk Andrew and Hugh did at University of Westminster, London in October 2013. It aims to complicate teachers’ understanding of what grammar might mean and to offer some thoughts on how best it might be taught / learned. Table of Contents: 00:00 - Rethinking grammar 02:14 - 03:27 - Much of it demands too much too young. This will put pressure on teachers to rely on rote learning without understanding. Inappropriate demands will lead to failure and demoralisation. The learner is largely ignored. Little account is taken of children’s potential interests and capacities, or that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience, lives and activity. 04:00 -  Little account is taken of .... that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience ... ... their experience, lives, and activity. Much of it demands too much too young. 05:11 -  “Presumably they mean something like ’demands too much when children are too young to be ready for so much’, but, as worded, it simply is not English,... ’young’ is an adjective, and cannot ever be an adverb.“ He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Shall yearely on the vygill feast his friends,And say, to morrow is S. Cryspines day 07:07 -  Little account is taken of .... that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience ... ... their experience, lives, and activity. Much of it demands too much too young. 07:12 - Much of it demands too much too young. This will put pressure on teachers to rely on rote learning without understanding. Inappropriate demands will lead to failure and demoralisation. The learner is largely ignored. Little account is taken of children’s potential interests and capacities, or that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience, lives and activity. 07:21 -  Little account is taken of .... that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience ... ... their experience, lives, and activity. Much of it demands too much too young. 08:08 -  “Presumably they mean something like ’demands too much when children are too young to be ready for so much’, but, as worded, it simply is not English,... ’young’ is an adjective, and cannot ever be an adverb.“ He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Shall yearely on the vygill feast his friends,And say, to morrow is S. Cryspines day 10:36 -  Little account is taken of .... that young children need to relate abstract ideas to their experience ... ... their experience, lives, and activity. Much of it demands too much too young. 10:37 -  “Presumably they mean something like ’demands too much when children are too young to be ready for so much’, but, as worded, it simply is not English,... ’young’ is an adjective, and cannot ever be an adverb.“ He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Shall yearely on the vygill feast his friends,And say, to morrow is S. Cryspines day 11:13 - My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her. If you want to know why I am always spleening her it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother. Father used to dub me Shapka, for the fur hat I would don even in the summer month. He ceased dubbing me that because I ordered him to cease dubbing me that. It sounded boyish to me, and I have always thought myself as very potent and generative. 11:14 -  “Presumably they mean something like ’demands too much when children are too young to be ready for so much’, but, as worded, it simply is not English,... ’young’ is an adjective, and cannot ever be an adverb.“ He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Shall yearely on the vygill feast his friends,And say, to morrow is S. Cryspines day 12:03 - My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her. If you want to know why I am always spleening her it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother. Father used to dub me Shapka, for the fur hat I would don even in the summer month. He ceased dubbing me that because I ordered him to cease dubbing me that. It sounded boyish to me, and I have always thought myself as very potent and generative. 15:38 - Wrong words or wrong grammar? 21:45 - Michael Swan said: 22:42 - So what different types of grammar are there? 24:28 - (b) Rules and forms 25:42 - (c) Slots that can be filled with words 28:14 - (e) Tenses and verb phrases 01:00:56 -