Fleeting are the days when students were forced to memorize prepositions, identify verbs, and diagram sentences, separating the clauses, phrases, and the subject and predicate. Now, grammar courses are sporadic, and what you learn largely depends on where you go to school or even what teacher you have. In the age where formal grammar seems to be disappearing, why should we keep studying it? What does grammar teach us?
Grammar consists of parts of speech, sentence structures, verb tenses, and many other phrases and clauses. But more than that, grammar is, as pointed out by the National Council of Teachers of English, the way we can discuss literature and the written word (2002). Just as physicists must use math to discuss content in their field, anybody who is looking to critique or discuss any piece of written work must know grammar, the building blocks behind all writing.
That being said, grammar is not denoting what is correct and what is incorrect. With teachers
having students focus on exercises to identify split infinitives and prepositional phrases, students may feel they need to write with perfect standard English at all times, but the contrary is true. Learning grammar allows students to know what is standard and what is colloquial. This helps them to know how to adjust their writing to fit specific audiences. It also helps them to identify what is part of their culture’s common English and what is part of standard English, which is found in most professional settings (National Council of Teachers of English, 2002).
Learning grammar can also help improve reading skills. With knowledge of common
sentence patterns, phrases, and clauses, students can use grammar to decipher hard to understand texts (Nordquist, 2019). This works in the classroom, whether students are struggling with medieval literature or sentences on a standardized test, or it can help in the workforce when studying complex documents or identifying tone in an email.
Learning English grammar can also help prepare students for learning other languages (Nordquist, 2019). Being able to compare and contrast between two languages is an effective way to engage with the new material, which can help students learn. For individuals who learn English as their second language, Jianyun Zhang argues grammar is important because it allows students to see how English is assembled (2009). Regardless of the language, grammar allows individuals the chance to see how vocabulary works and how words build meaning.
To many, grammar appears to be unnecessary and something done naturally. Studying it, though, helps to develop understanding for the language and why we say things in the way that we do. This allows for quick identification of statements that are outside of the norm and invites debate as to whether those changes are intentional or accidental. Studying grammar allows us to look into why writers make the choices that they do and helps us to make our own unique choices for our writing.
References
National Council of Teachers of English. (2002, July 1). Some Questions and Answers about
Grammar. NCTE. Retrieved September 20, 2021, from
https://ncte.org/statement/qandaaboutgrammar/.
Nordquist, R. (2019, August 2). What Can Grammar Do for You, Whether You Study or Teach It?
ThoughtCo. Retrieved September 20, 2021, from
https://www.thoughtco.com/why-does-grammar-matter-1691029.
Zhang, J. (2009, May). Necessity of Grammar Teaching. The Canadian Center of Science and
Education. Retrieved September 20, 2021.