Understanding and Teaching Grammar in the Primary Classroom: Subject knowledge, ideas and activities / Edition 1

by Josh Lury

Overview

Understanding and Teaching Grammar in the Primary Classroom is a practical guide for trainee and practising teachers, with language, and the way we use it to think and communicate, at its heart. Built on a foundation of how powerful, beautiful and thought-provoking language is, this book uses our intuitions about words and language to form a picture of how grammar works, and how even very young children are masters of its patterns.

Each chapter builds from fundamental concepts up to the fine details, providing an introduction to developing grammatical subject knowledge, alongside explanations of key ideas and vocabulary, including:

• Generality – a look at the general structures of sentences that allow us to learn a language at all

• Specifics – a look at the words and modifications that allow us to use this universal tool to pinpoint the specifics of our thoughts and the world around us

• Relationships – looking at how sentences behave in relation to one another, and how they can be merged in such a way that we can show cause and effect in the world

• Humans – focusing on some of the details and idiosyncrasies we are able to give our language

• Language games – examples of language typical of children, and methods to pull this apart and understand how it works.

At its core is the idea that as our language grows, so our understanding grows; grammar is not the study of what to say and how to say it, but of what it is possible to think, feel and express in words.

Illustrated throughout with practical lesson ideas, helpful tips and easy-to-use classroom strategies, Understanding and Teaching Grammar in the Primary Classroom is a must-read guide for all trainee and practising primary teachers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138948884
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/12/2016
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.81(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Josh Lury is an experienced teacher and member of the School Leadership Team at Blackwater Community Primary School, Cornwall, UK.

Table of Contents

Introduction – The Grammar Paradox Part I Generalities - Sentences 1. Voice and Power 2. Ping Pung 3. The Beating Heart 4. A Game of Two Halves 5. Doing and Being 6. Beginnings and Endings Part II Specifics - Phrases 7. Time and tense 8. Modifying the Verb 9. Noun Phrases 10. Prepositions Part III Relationships, Cluses and Commas 11. Main Clause 12. Subordinate Clauses 13. Relative Clauses 14. Commas Part IV Language and People 15. Details 16. Knowledge 17. Probability, Possibility and Persuasion 18. If… 19. Responsibility and Blame 20. Wonder Part V Words, Words, Words 21. Etymology and Transformation 22. Slang and Speech 23. Rhetorical Devices 24. Last Word