Two Problems in the Teaching of English.

English instruction is successful when students learn to express significant ideas clearly in discussions, write with verve and grace, read with insight and enjoyment, and practice these skills beyond the realm of the classroom. This report discusses how to teach grammar and select literature in order to achieve those goals. Research and issues in grammar teaching are reviewed. Grammar learning is enhanced in active language environments that use techniques such as role-playing and sentence combining, while attending to grammar concerns primarily within the writing process. The following types of "literature" should be included in the curriculum: (1) a wide range of works for all ages: (2) popular literature; (3) great classical and contemporary literature; (4) nonprint media such as television, film, and drama; (5) students' personal experience; and (6) information about literature (authors' lives, particular works, literary movements, figures of speech, metric patterns, etc.). The latter, though emphasized in the past, should be approached more as a tool than as an end in itself and should be subordinate to higher order thinking skills and students' responses to characters and events in a work. Since nonprint media provide students' most frequent vicarious experience, the English teacher has an important stake in guiding their understanding of the imaginative worlds presented there. A list of references is included. (PS)