Alice in Teacherland.

My aunt Alice was many things, except an actual aunt. She was a cousin twice removed, and only called aunt because she was my grandmother's age. She was also an illustrator with a sense of humour. 

Going through family papers, I came across a booklet with some of her drawings. One struck me in particular: a teacher pouring knowledge from a book into a child. If only it were that simple. 

The drawing was a satirical comment on education, of course, but who hasn't had at least one teacher who'd merely repeat what the coursebook said? Knowledge administered like that has little or no impact.

If it were that simple, we'd only need teachers who helped us along in mastering the alphabet and learning how to read. Teaching is so much more. For one, it's about discerning what to teach, how much of it, and why it's important in the first place.

It is also about setting the stage for what's yet to come. Getting the basics right means laying a solid foundation. That takes some time, usually more than the average coursebook will allow, but it's worth it. After all, how could you ever dream of building elaborate structures on weak foundations?

So it all starts with choosing which basics are essential and then making them easy to understand. Unfortunately, most coursebooks are no help in that respect, so it's up to the teachers to shed some light.

Typically, coursebooks for teaching English take a wrong turn from the start. They introduce the present simple tense first, which is an exception. Why not begin with the present continuous that shows the basic pattern for all English verb forms? 

Next, coursebooks for beginners tend to move on to more rules and more tenses too quickly. Learning is not unlike building a home, so why the hurry? No matter if you're constructing a simple house or a highrise, you must have strong foundations first. 

If you are to pour one essential English grammar rule into students, let it be the basic pattern for word order and verb forms: SvVOPT. Then let it remain a continuous, irresistible whisper in their ears, repeated until that indispensable foundation has become second nature. I'm convinced aunt Alice would have approved of that.

SvVOPT rules!

Like, comment and share if you enjoyed reading this GrammarBob post.

GrammarBob's continuing mission: to boldly go where no grammar has gone before and make essential English grammar easy for all.

For those unfamiliar with SvVOPT: it shows the basic word order in English (Subject - Verbs - Object - Place - Time) as well as the basic pattern of English verb constructs.

Have you seen the Friday SCOWL on Instagram? @GrammarBob