[ola] Re: Subjunctive
- From: Ruth Whalen Crockett <rwhalen@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "<ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>" <ola@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 17:56:27 +0000
Tom, et al
Thanks for adding to the conversation. Your opinion was captured in an
interesting conversation I had with students yesterday where one of my students
was asking if he could avoid ever learning the subjunctive. As a class we came
up with examples where his life might be more interesting knowing this mood.
Examples such as (in Spanish of course) What do you want to do for your
birthday? Vs. What would you like us to do for you for your birthday? This was
a great nuanced conversation where my students defended which question they
would rather hear. It also connected well to a discussion we had a day
previous about what it takes to be an advanced speaker.
This is my highest level class. There is no way they would be ready for a
conversation like this prior to IM.
Great conversations!
Ruthie
Ruth E. Whalen Crockett
Spanish Domain Leader
Francis W. Parker Charter Essential School &
Theodore R. Sizer Regional Teachers Center
On Apr 30, 2014, at 11:59 AM, "Thomas Hinkle"
<thinkle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:thinkle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I saw WEIRDO and had to bite -- I've always winced at the listy ways of
teaching grammar rules because they seem so clunky to use. How can you possibly
speak and run through an acronym in your head at the same time?
I also am convinced that teaching students which subjects "take" a grammatical
construction is the wrong way to go about things. Instead, I prefer to use the
linguist's tool of minimal pairs. In teaching minimal pairs, the goal is to
find pairs of utterances where the only difference is the thing you're teaching
(in this case, the subjunctive), but where the meaning changes, ideally
dramatically -- that way you're teaching what the grammar communicates, rather
than what it dictates. Put another way, this focuses on how you can use grammar
to communicate more effectively rather than on how the rules of grammar, which
often feel arbitrary and stupid, can make you sound like an idiot.
For the subjunctive, the easiest minimal pairs, to my mind, involve "cuando"
and "decir":
Dicen que vengas VS Dicen que vienes
Dijo que vinieras vs. Dijo que viniste
Cuando venga VS Cuando viene
And so on.
I'd introduce the subjunctive in those ways and then let it build out from
there.
Cuando vengas... -> Le dice que vengas --> Quiero que vengas --> Me gusta que
vengas --> Insisto en que vengas is a sequence that makes a kind of sense
without any need for explanation. Note that also natural extensions of this
pattern are the "imperatives" -- "no vengas" and "venga."
There are of course corner cases of subjunctive use, such as the so-called
"emotional" subjunctive, but those uses are actually less consistent among
native speakers as well (for a little mini-example, look at the difference
between equal numbers in a google search for emotional
subjunctive<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22me+alegro+de+que+est%C3%A1s%22&oq=%22me+alegro+de+que+est%C3%A1s%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.6102j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=106&ie=UTF-8#q=%22alegra+de+que+est%C3%A9%22>/indicative<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22me+alegro+de+que+est%C3%A1s%22&oq=%22me+alegro+de+que+est%C3%A1s%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.6102j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=106&ie=UTF-8#q=%22alegra+de+que+est%C3%A1%22>
vs. more consistent use of the emotional subjunctive in edited, published
texts<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=alegro+que+est%C3%A1s%2Calegro+que+est%C3%A9s%2Calegro+de+que+est%C3%A1s%2Calegro+de+que+est%C3%A9s&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=21&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Calegro%20que%20est%C3%A9s%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Calegro%20de%20que%20est%C3%A9s%3B%2Cc0>).
My source for much of this is a book I never stop recommending, Stanley
Whitley's Spanish/English
contrasts.<http://books.google.com/books/about/Spanish_English_Contrasts.html?id=yyqU_tXek1EC>
Sorry to write for so long, but I always get excited when grammar comes up :)
Tom
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 10:35 AM, Jody Soberon
<JodySo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:JodySo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi,
Included in the word doc are the lyrics to 3 songs, I think all three were
previously mentioned in another email, including links to video with lyrics.
Hope you find them helpful,
Jody
Foreign Languages
Brookings Harbor High School
>>> ALISSA FARIAS <AFARIAS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:AFARIAS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
>>> 4/29/2014 1:03 PM >>>
Looking for some fun activities for teaching the subjunctive. Specifically ones
that will encourage conversation and also video/audio ones.
--
Thomas Hinkle
English & Spanish Department Coordinator
Innovation Academy Charter School
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