Teacher interview

I interviewed a professor in the area of education. Mrs. E feels schools place a large emphasis on grammar especially in heavily bilingual school districts. She believes there is a very wide range of methods and standards in teaching grammar. Older generations place larger importance on diagramming sentences than the younger generations. The need for teachers to model and demonstrate good habits in their everyday speech is also very important. Teaching good grammar means nothing to children if use is poor in everyday communication. It is common for teachers to write incorrectly on the board or in comments on papers. When you speak, you are a role model. Students learn speech patterns quickly and teachers can easily start bad habits when the wrong things are said.
As a teacher, Mrs. E expects and welcomes errors in the rough drafts of assignments; however, the final drafts are expected to be virtually flawless. With spell check and grammar check readily available on today's computers, she argues there is no reason for many errors. We are blessed to have such wonderful editing tools available to us. As far as marking papers down for grammatical errors, she believes it is the choice of the individual professor to choose grading criteria for assignments. There are many colleges that strive for grammar correctness across the board. Mrs. E sees spelling errors more often than most other things. She says many students have no spelling ability, and "inventive spelling gets old fast". Mrs. E stresses that those teachers and students who have poor grammar skills will most likely have a very difficult time communicating their ideas clearly and concisely.
When asked what she thought about the evolution of grammar over time she talked about changes in rules like split infinitives. Language has become more casual. Personally, Mrs. E loves the inventiveness of new words in dictionaries and speech. She loves the way nouns are being used as verbs and other playful inventions. Mrs. E is also a children's book author. The most important thing Mrs E said was, "Teachers can't inform if they can't communicate clearly."