Guest Column | Let’s catch grammar, you and I
Grammar is caught, not taught; the best way to learn a language is gradually and naturally, through real experiences, rather than workbooks and exercises
“I could not reach in time to join my family for dinner.” The sentence seemed innocuous enough as I added it to a student’s story, and yet I received a text message from her mother saying, “Shouldn’t it be ‘on time’ and not ‘in time’?”
I was sure that I was right, and there was more than one way to frame a sentence. However, before I responded, I decided to verify the usage from a reliable grammar website, just in case, and sure enough, I wasn’t wrong.
As per the website, ‘in time’ means “early enough before a deadline or a cut off.” It indicates that one arrived or accomplished a task with sufficient time remaining to do something else, in our case to have dinner with the family.
On the other hand, ‘on time’ means arriving at the designated time. As is usually the case, I was not consciously aware of this rule of grammar, and yet I had used it correctly. I probably, learnt the byzantine rules of English grammar, subconsciously – from the books and newspapers I read, the movies, and television shows I watched, and the people I interacted with on a daily basis.
Subconscious is key
I have always believed that grammar is caught, not taught. The best way to learn a language is gradually and naturally, through real experiences. Language is learnt through figures of speech, phrases, and idioms used by our parents, teachers, siblings, and actors on television.
Learning grammar is like driving a car. In the beginning, we fret over the rules of accelerating, slowing down, braking et al, and then comes a time when we drive without a conscious thought, seemingly on auto-pilot, with the myriad rules an indelible part of our subconscious.
There needs to be a change in the was grammar is taught in schools. It should not be taught as a standalone activity. The students’ mind and imagination should be teased through immersive activities such as role playing, writing an article for the school magazine, writing to an author, or inviting the school principal to a class assembly, creating short stories in small groups, or reading a newspaper or storybook.
However, should one flip through the English notebook of a CBSE school student, it becomes apparent that such concepts are alien to policymakers and curriculum designers.
Who is afraid of tenses?
Forms of verbs are drilled into students in Class 3, which only induces mighty yawns among students, and anxiety among parents.
When the students move to tenses, parents’ anxiety usually increases manifold, and they enrol their wards for special language classes after school, where superfluous rules of grammar are fastidiously hammered into their heads.
Little do parents, teachers, and curriculum designers realise that sentence formation comes intuitively. If we were to apply the abundant and contrary rules of grammar consciously, they would only get in our way.
We do a gross disservice to our children when we keep them engrossed in worksheets and exercises, leaving them with little time to speak, read or write, and thereby interfering with their subconscious learning.
Making children as young as ten years of age, identify the different types of adjectives and adverbs will not help matters either, or help them get proficient in the language.
This is not to say that one should completely do away with the conventional way of teaching grammar. While the teachers can be ‘upholders’ of grammar, the ‘keepers’ of pronunciation and the ‘correctors’ of wrongly placed apostrophes, they need to plan lessons that are enjoyable, engaging and fun. But, remember not to dive too deep into it.
rupymand@gmail.com
(The writer is a Jalandhar-based educator)