Three methods for teaching writing are proving effective in metropolitan Atlanta schools: (1) using small groups to help students diagnose and review their own papers; (2) assigning brief writing exercises and journals to develop fluency; and (3) deriving lessons in grammar and punctuation from students' own papers to improve mastery of standard…

After tracing the history of English grammar, the author defends the teaching of traditional grammar. A suitable English grammar must: (1) recognize the influence of Latin upon English; (2) describe the language while acknowledging its ambiguities; and (3) serve as a reliable guide to usage. (PP)

The proverbial language of Spanish provides a resource for teaching and testing various aspects of phonetics, syntax, vocabulary, and cultural features of the language. Incorporation of these features into the Spanish curriculum can enrich the classroom experience. Specific suggestions for their use are provided. (Author/MSE)

Reviews the important issues surrounding the practice of including formal grammar in the English curriculum of secondary schools. Addresses in the process such questions as whether or not traditional prescriptive grammar has an educational value, why prescriptive grammar has come under attack, and how students benefit from prescriptive grammar…

Suggests criteria and strategies for an efficient use of textbook grammar presentations to give students a useful and native-like language. Shows how text deficiencies can be remedied through rearrangement and deletion of grammatical points and emphasizes the need for reentering useful, high frequency items in new contexts throughout the course.…

Analyzes some of the educational problems that can arise from teachers' lack of awareness of the systematic differences between standard English and nonstandard dialects. Discusses the serious linguistic and social consequences of the situation in Britain, where most schoolchildren speak nonstandard English. (SK)

Reports on the results and implications of a study intended to discover the causes of students' resistance to learning grammar as a subject. The study was based on an optional course in traditional grammar for second-year education students preparing to become English teachers. (MES)

Discusses the difficulties English speakers experience in using correctly the various tenses of the past in French, focusing particularly on the imperfect tense. Proposes a series of exercises based on contrastive analysis that gradually lead the learner to restructure his intuitive grammar. (MES)

Discusses the use of visual aids in teaching grammar and vocabulary, and particularly the use of students' skits, when possible. Presents two detailed scripts to demonstrate how the skit technique can be used for presentation of some prepositions, the reflexive verb, and the relative pronouns "qui" and "que". (MES)

Guidelines for connecting the rhetorical principles taught by Francis Christensen with concepts from sentence-combining in a plan to help students learn to invent and develop sentences. (RL)