I’ve been really interested in language since I was a teenager. I was fascinated, from a young age, by the power dynamics hidden behind linguistic interactions and the ways that some forms of a language come to be labelled as “correct” and others as “incorrect,” often in a thinly veiled effort to legitimize class-based or race-based power differences. That fascination is what motivated me to study linguistics and led me to become a language teacher. For a few years now, I have been teaching business English at a French-language university in Montreal. As a language teacher, I am usually expected to be the person who clearly defines for my students what is “correct” language use and what is “incorrect.” I’m amused by this irony.

Sometimes, I feel like my students leave my class more confused about grammar than when they walked in. I’m not able to simply list a grammar rule, explaining it, and leave it at that. I tend to think of this inability of mine as a good thing, but it’s definitely not always what students are looking for.

For example, every time I find myself explaining that stative verbs can’t be used in a continuous form (e.g., “I am believing in grammar rules”), I also feel compelled to explain that the English language is continually changing and in flux, and using stative verbs in a continuous form is actually super hip and cool (e.g., “I’m loving your new outfit!”). Luckily, a lot of my teaching these days is in a business environment, so I can set a clear boundary for students that a particular “grammar rule” applies in formal business contexts (unless you work in marketing at McDonald’s).

I had a student ask me recently about ending sentences with a preposition (“he’s the person I run with” vs. “he’s the person with whom I run”). With another student, I was explaining the structure of sentences like “she is smarter than I” (vs. the much more commonly heard “she is smarter than me”). Both of these questions highlight situations where the “correct” language doesn’t sound right in everyday speech. The gist of my explanation, for both of them, was: In formal writing, go ahead and follow the “rule” to the best of your ability, but if you do that same thing when you’re speaking out loud, you might come off sounding a bit stuffy. Language is complicated.

I often find myself pondering this funny position that I’ve found myself in (a sociolinguist whose job sometimes has her prescribing grammar rules). Any other language teachers out there having a similar experience?

References

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