Here’s a post to a fl teacher listserv:
“I have to disagree. Although I teach using a communicative approach; if we are talking about the same thing. The DGP is meant to be a 2 minute warmup activitiy at the beginning of class. Unfortunately the whole language approach so well defended in the ivory towers of academia has contributed to generations of students who are unable to explain what the difference between an adjective and an adverb. Oddly enough, many times it is the very teachers who benefited from a conscious awareness of grammar in their education that are so opposed to it with an almost political zeal.”
I will bet you no one will respond to this nonsense. Throwing around charges like this makes the writer sound “rigorous”, and, on top of that, sophisticated. This is the kind of crap the Neocons have promoted for decades in an attempt to shore up traditional ways of teaching which favored them and left most students out in the cold.
But for some reason, few members of these listservs are willing to take on blow-hards like this. Where are the Whole Language programs? Exactly how many people learned the difference between an adjective and an adverb, and if they did, what good did it do? Usually it just lead to stupid, uninformed comments like “slow” cannot be an adverb b/c as an adverb it has to end in -ly.
For years I took these people on and finally decided they are like cockroaches – they’re everywhere and don’t die. Whole Language methods have been adopted piece-meal without teachers even knowing they are Whole Language. Attacking Whole Language makes you sound tough-minded and knowledgeable and I doubt if anyone will take this guy on.