1. Based on the text below answer questions 11 to 18.

The wrong way to teach grammar (Part I)

Michelle Navarre Cleary

A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech don’t help and may even hinder students’ efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the oldfashioned way does not work.

This finding is consistent among students of all ages, from elementary school through college. For example, one wellregarded study followed three groups of students from 9th to 11th grade where one group had traditional rulebound lessons, a second received an alternative approach to grammar instruction, and a third received no grammar lessons at all, just more literature and creative writing. The result: No significant differences among the three groups except that both grammar groups emerged with a strong antipathy to English.

There is a real cost to ignoring such findings. In my work with adults who dropped out of school before earning a college degree, I have found over and over again that they overedit themselves from the moment they sit down to write. They report thoughts like “Is this right? Is that right?” and “Oh my god, if I write a contraction, I’m going to flunk.” Focused on being correct, they never give themselves a chance to explore their ideas or ways of expressing those ideas. Significantly, this sometimes debilitating focus on “the rules” can be found in students who attended elite private institutions as well as those from resourcestrapped public schools.

We need to teach students how to write grammatically by letting them write.

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Adapted from: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/thewrongwaytoteachgrammar/284014/. Acessed on 02/08/2014.