Thommo--Ok, I see what you mean. Well, I try to teach the comparative and superlative, and at least 1/2 of my students are familiar with that from their middle school education.
My students are, for the most part, already familiar with English--they generally study it through middle school (form 1-5), but that doesn't mean that they actually know it. They usually are taught English in Chinese most of the way through (unless they attended an English as Mode of Instruction--EMI--school, in which everything except their Chinese courses was taught in English).
No, I don't bother telling them not to split infinitives. I look at it this way--if I can get them to a level of writing in which they will be able to enter a college writing class next year, then I've been successful. I think there are few college composition instructors who will mark students down for splitting infinitives (and now I'm thinking very carefully as I write, because that's also not something I pay close attention to!). And probably at least 1/2 of my students are not going to go on to college, or at least not in English. So really, I work mostly on organization rather than focusing on the "nuts and bolts."
However, as issues come up (such as the aforementioned "comma splices" which maybe I shouldn't stress about--I'm still not sure about that yet), I do address them in class (though my students are glassy-eyed about commas right now--I think I overdid it last week! LOL).
They have a basic background in grammar. It's just that, as often happens, their grammar knowledge has never been tied to their writing ability, and it's surprisingly hard to meld the two (for me, anyway--maybe some of you are laughing, saying, what IS the problem here!).
M
My students are, for the most part, already familiar with English--they generally study it through middle school (form 1-5), but that doesn't mean that they actually know it. They usually are taught English in Chinese most of the way through (unless they attended an English as Mode of Instruction--EMI--school, in which everything except their Chinese courses was taught in English).
No, I don't bother telling them not to split infinitives. I look at it this way--if I can get them to a level of writing in which they will be able to enter a college writing class next year, then I've been successful. I think there are few college composition instructors who will mark students down for splitting infinitives (and now I'm thinking very carefully as I write, because that's also not something I pay close attention to!). And probably at least 1/2 of my students are not going to go on to college, or at least not in English. So really, I work mostly on organization rather than focusing on the "nuts and bolts."
However, as issues come up (such as the aforementioned "comma splices" which maybe I shouldn't stress about--I'm still not sure about that yet), I do address them in class (though my students are glassy-eyed about commas right now--I think I overdid it last week! LOL).
They have a basic background in grammar. It's just that, as often happens, their grammar knowledge has never been tied to their writing ability, and it's surprisingly hard to meld the two (for me, anyway--maybe some of you are laughing, saying, what IS the problem here!).
M