This is why Williams need to be available to answer questions

Okay, so I got lost again in Williams’ chapter. I remember at one point there were so many words on the page that my eyes started to cross. He would often lose me, and then I’d find my way back, only to find myself completely lost again quite quickly.

I wish every week I could call Williams after reading this book because I have so many questions for him. For example, Williams says, on p. 178, “every native speaker of a language already knows the grammar on an implicit level.” I can’t help but wonder if this really is true. What about children who are adopted at an early age and are already speaking, and are taken to another country, where they become fluent in that language? How does Williams account for children who start speaking one language, then change and learn a whole new language, one that becomes their primary language, and who can write quite well in this new language? They were not native speakers, so how do they know the grammar of the language so well? I am thinking about two Asian boys I know who were already speaking Chinese when they were adopted and brought to the United States. They now speak fluent English, and write well for their age (9 &5). They know the grammar of English, but it was not originally their native language. (Do these questions even make sense?) What about students who are bi-lingual? There many people who speak English and Spanish fluently, most since birth. They can switch easily between the two languages, speaking and writing grammatically correct in either language even though in Spanish ordinary statements can start with the subject, the verb, or the object.

I do not totally agree with Williams when he says, “The preceding errors are most likely the result of students’ pervasive lack of reading experience” (183). I feel that the English is one of the hardest languages to master. We have so many rules and nuances and words with multiple, unrelated meanings that it is hard to grasp it all. Lack of reading doesn’t always account for improper use of words. First, we have many words that sound alike. Using his examples, granite/granted, illusion/allusion, except/accept. They sound the same. I know LOTS of adults who get confused whether to use affect or effect. We all have misspelled to, two, and too in our writing. It wasn’t because we haven’t seen them in other people’s writing; it’s because we get confused on which one to use. And the whole discussion over using I or me in a sentence is one that we will have for a long time, because it is all situation specific. That is what makes English so hard.

One thing that confused me is Williams’ suggestion that students listen for mistakes in language usage and grammar. If words sound the same, then how do we know if there is a usage mistake? How do you know if a person is saying “I took it for granite” or “I took it for granted”? Unless we are all speaking the exact say way, with the same dialect and word pronunciation, this activity can be very hard to do. These subtle mistakes in usage are hard to determine unless they are seen. Are we than to say that someone who pronounces “ask” like “axe” has poor usage skills? They are asking “Can I ask you a question” but I hear “Can I axe you a question”. Are they wrong in what they say or am I wrong in what I hear?

I think that there needs to be a realization that the English language is a very hard language to learn and understand, even for native speakers. As I said before, there are too many rules, exceptions to the rules, nuances, and more, that even as someone who enjoys reading and writing and who wants to teach this, I am overwhelmed by it all.