Re: "Why We Don't Like English Classes"

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In perusing the above-captioned article, I was horrified by the numerous mechanical, syntactical, and grammatical errors.
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Are you talking about this article http://www.antimoon.com/other/englishclass.htm ?
If so, could you pinpoint some of those "numerous errors" so the rest of us can learn from it?

"There is a school of thought that says it is little better to use a footnote"

It's a little bit hard to make a footnote here, don't you think?

Why We Don't Like English Classes?

Because we're not allowed to write IT'S ME, WHO DID YOU SEE...

"Because we're not allowed to write IT'S ME, WHO DID YOU SEE..."

Well said!

It should be kept in mind that teaching English to native speakers isn't the same as teaching it to non-native speakers.

For example, concepts like "dangling" or "squinting" modifiers are inventions of native Anglophones teaching other native Anglophones. Monolingual English speakers who learn to teach English often invent and learn a lot of highly esoteric terms for concepts that are trivial or meaningless outside the realm of monolingual English teaching.

Furthermore, errors such as dangling or squinting modifiers are much more prevalent among native English writers than among non-native English writers. Non-native writers see the inherent ambiguities in such constructions immediately, and so they do not use them. Native writers sometimes think without actually reading what they write, and so they write things that don't make sense without realizing it.

Finally, some of the "errors" pointed out by native Anglophone English teachers are actually just questions of style. The old argument about sentences ending in a proposition is one example.

My impression is that ESL teachers and teachers of native English speakers operate in two significantly different worlds, with the latter being much closer to an ivory tower than the former.

"Why We Don't Like English Classes?

Because we're not allowed to write IT'S ME, WHO DID YOU SEE..."

"Finally, some of the "errors" pointed out by native Anglophone English teachers are actually just questions of style. The old argument about sentences ending in a proposition is one example."

In my opinion, what should be principally taught as the *spoken* standard at ESL classes is normal, everyday non-dialectal usage. By "normal" I mean the language of educated native speakers, which has by now largely "overruled" such "prohibitions" as the non-usage of "it's me", the exclusive use of "whom" in object case or "Who did you give the letter to?" instead of "To whom did you give the letter"? On the other hand, learners should be made aware that forms like "whom" may be more appropriate in a formal context, and that contracted forms are absolutely inappropriate in a formal style, whether spoken or written. It is a sad thing for me to see when various style levels are intermixed in a term paper or in a formal letter. Rather than focussing on a prescriptive, grammar-book notion of "correctness", it is better to think in terms of "appropriateness" (the difference being that the latter is more in touch with actual usage and therefore more flexible). Also, errors of appropriateness in written assignments should be corrected more rigorously than errors in spoken usage.