Way2blessed Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 This is our first year of MCT and we have started with Grammar Town Level. We LOVE the vocabulary in Caesar's English. We have been listening to the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland on Audiobook, and we have already picked out the word "prodigious" twice and "languidly" once, thanks to just having studied them in MCT. Grammar, however, seems to appear as if all the glowing comments I've witnessed seem like a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. After being introduced to all the different phrases in the last lesson, today we had to start analyzing sentences with them. We did fairly well until we got to the sentence, "Eating the pizza, Roberto laughed at the dog.". I couldn't explain how "eating" was an adjective, or even who was doing the eating (Roberto or the dog?) I'm wondering if everyone else using MCT has a Masters in English or something similar. Where is the "teaching" that I seem to be missing?:confused1: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokotg Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 Heh--I DO have a master's in English, and it still took me awhile to get the hang of the verbals (I don't remember them ever being taught when I was in school, although I might just have blocked it out!) For us, it got easier and easier as we went though the practice book together and talked about the sentences. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted November 18, 2011 Share Posted November 18, 2011 As a parent who has recently learned a TON from Grammar/Sentence Island, I'd say you may want to get a used copy and go through it together. I'm 34, and grammar has never been more clear! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penelope Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 I have love/hate for it, too. I actually love the way the grammar is front-loaded and then it is applied immediately. So different from the spoon-feeding that us in most programs, and great for a child that doesn't need lots of repetition. My son has to actually think, whereas with a workbook he can tend to tune out and still get the right answers. But, sometimes it would be nice to have a little more info in the teacher's book. You may want to join the yahoo group. There are discussions on some of the exercises, and mistakes in the answer key have been found. My main compliant with MCT is that it isn't thorough enough to use as the only grammar resource year after year. Not for writing, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.... Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 I actually love the grammar, vocab and poetry, but I do NOT like the writing. :glare: We supplement MCT, because my kids really need to learn punctuation. We haven't hit that in MCT, but my kids are writing a lot - and they need to understand punctuation. I do think the 4-level analysis is incredible. I have never understood grammar like I do now (and I'm not the student - LOL). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TCB Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 We did fairly well until we got to the sentence, "Eating the pizza, Roberto laughed at the dog.". I couldn't explain how "eating" was an adjective, or even who was doing the eating (Roberto or the dog?) I'm wondering if everyone else using MCT has a Masters in English or something similar. Where is the "teaching" that I seem to be missing?:confused1: I definitely do not have a masters in English, in fact am fairly terrible at grammar, and this is the exact spot that we had problems too. I posted a thread about it as, to us, it seemed that it should be an adverb, describing how he ate, not an adjective. Several people posted links to sources that confirmed that participial phrases are always adjectives. It's still not completely clear to me, but we can usually pick out participial phrases and for now are just remembering the rule that they are adjectives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted November 19, 2011 Share Posted November 19, 2011 Having trained as a linguist... and taught English for years, there were a couple things in MCT that bothered me. There's certainly some good stuff too... but I *wish* that a linguistically sound language program existed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Way2blessed Posted November 20, 2011 Author Share Posted November 20, 2011 I definitely do not have a masters in English, in fact am fairly terrible at grammar, and this is the exact spot that we had problems too. I posted a thread about it as, to us, it seemed that it should be an adverb, describing how he ate, not an adjective. Several people posted links to sources that confirmed that participial phrases are always adjectives. It's still not completely clear to me, but we can usually pick out participial phrases and for now are just remembering the rule that they are adjectives. Glad to know I'm not the only one. I kept trying to fit my explanation of adjectives to the definition from FLL, which we also use, but just couldn't explain this one. I can figure out that it is a participial phrase by process of elimination, I think, so I guess that is what we will do for now. My son just stares at me blankly at this point, however, because this was just all thrown out so quickly. Can anyone clarify who is eating the pizza? I'm fairly certain it's Roberto, but ewww, eating while laughing?:ack2: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 Glad to know I'm not the only one. I kept trying to fit my explanation of adjectives to the definition from FLL, which we also use, but just couldn't explain this one. I can figure out that it is a participial phrase by process of elimination, I think, so I guess that is what we will do for now. My son just stares at me blankly at this point, however, because this was just all thrown out so quickly. Can anyone clarify who is eating the pizza? I'm fairly certain it's Roberto, but ewww, eating while laughing?:ack2: An introductory participial phrase always modifies the subject (so, it is indeed Roberto rudely laughing while eating pizza ;)). If it doesn't intend to, you end up with a "misplaced modifier" or "dangling participle" - the sentence is then improperly constructed. Think about if you had a participial phrase at the beginning that definitely was trying to describe the dog: "Scratching his fleas, Roberto laughed at the dog." That is actually saying that Roberto is scratching his fleas, which (one hopes) is not the intent. The sentence should be rewritten so that the phrase is next to what it modifies. Critical Thinking Press has a great series called "Punctuation Puzzlers" that has some hilarious misplaced modifiers to drive this point home. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Way2blessed Posted November 20, 2011 Author Share Posted November 20, 2011 Thanks Matroyshka, that makes sense. I just found and read through the old thread on this sentence and think I understand it now. And I would add, that even though I understand it, I still think it is a poorly written example. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 20, 2011 Share Posted November 20, 2011 I always think of it as "the eating-the-pizza Roberto". If that makes any sense at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penelope Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 Having trained as a linguist... and taught English for years, there were a couple things in MCT that bothered me. There's certainly some good stuff too... but I *wish* that a linguistically sound language program existed. :bigear: Not to derail, but I would love to hear a little bit more about this, if you'd like to share. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testimony Posted November 21, 2011 Share Posted November 21, 2011 "Eating the pizza, Roberto laughed at the dog.". I couldn't explain how "eating" was an adjective, or even who was doing the eating (Roberto or the dog?) I'm wondering if everyone else using MCT has a Masters in English or something similar. Where is the "teaching" that I seem to be missing?:confused1: In this sentence, it is clear that Roberto is eating the pizza and the entire verbal phrase is an adjective. The sentence starts, "eating the pizza." Then after the comma comes "Roberto" which clearly tells you who is eating the pizza. If the sentence went like this "eating the pizza, the chair fell on the dog," then it would be a dangling participle because the chair does not eat pizza. The verbal phrase must follow with a subject in that kind of sentence. The verbal phrase is describing Roberto. Thus, it is an adjective. I thought that MCT's philosophy was to teach only 6 weeks of grammar and then the rest of the year you parse. No?? I like to be spoon fed my grammar because I am no good at it. So, I don't use MCT for grammar at all. Blessings in your homeschooling journey! Sincerely, Karen http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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