Back and forth

I vividly remember an exhausting exercise from when I played basketball as a teenager. It's an effective conditioning drill for increasing speed, agility and stamina, commonly known as suicide sprints. That doesn't sound very friendly, and many would see the name changed. Still, there is a valid point behind the exercise.

For those of you not familiar with the sports term suicide drill: it's an exercise in which you steadily increase your range yet always return to the starting point. Starting at the baseline, you run to the first line, touch it, and run back. Next, you run to the second line and back. Then to the third, and so on.?

The educational point to take away from this exercise is to return to the essential basics before introducing new subjects. The baseline anchors each run, while each increase in distance seems relatively small compared to the previous run. What's more, going over familiar ground and repeating the initial stages reinforces basic skills, stamina and confidence.

SvVOPT is that baseline in English, supporting each consecutive step in essential grammar. Basic word order, emphasis, questions and negatives, verb forms, compound sentences: they're all anchored in SvVOPT.?So I think the name of this training routine is a misnomer: it should be called a?survival?drill.

Showing how consecutive steps are only a relatively small step up from the familiar basics is empowering instead of boring. Once SvVOPT?becomes second nature, each following step becomes so much easier, and even challenging steps can still feel within reach.?

So back to basics it is, always showing the basic pattern that governs English grammar. That should never be boring, as repetition doesn't necessarily mean doing precisely the same thing. It's more about quickly recalling and consolidating the essentials before moving on.?

The back-and-forth drill has nothing to do with suicide after all - on the contrary: it's a key to survival. SvVOPT is the baseline to return to; it's the lifeline to cling to; it's the One Rule to stick to in English. That's why GrammarBob never tires of repeating that SvVOPT rules!

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

grammarCORE: I help English language teachers discover how a radically new approach to grammar will empower them and their students