Time and Tense in an English Pedagogical Grammar

Abstract

According to B. Spolsky there are three kinds of pedagogical grammar in foreign-language learning and teaching; there should be a grammar for the teacher, another one for the curriculum writer and, last but not least, a different one for the students (Spolsky, 1978). This last venture on grammar should take into account not only WHAT will be taught, but especially HOW it will be presented, taught and learned. It is our intention to focus on a presentation of foreign-language grammar that will facilitate learning. For this purpose we have consulted recent developments in the psychology of learning (Paivio, 1971), namely the role of mediation in verbal learning, especially the experiments with imagery in verbal responses. We have also learned a lot from the science of semiotics, whose latest attempts to systematize the signs a human being uses (Sebeok, 1973, 1976) taught us a clear distinction between symbols ans icons. Most signs used in our approach to describe time and tense in English, are, accordingly, icons, because they can visualize even the abstract contents of a notion or a grammar rule in a simulating way. Seeing the sign in later learning stages triggers the notion or rule back into the memory. One can invent several kinds of exercises to be done by means of these mediating signs.

‘Pictura Est Laicorum Literatura’

Umberto Eco