Do you know a subordinating conjunction or a preposition?

Do you know a subordinating conjunction or a preposition?

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saaby93

Original Poster:

32,038 posts

177 months

Tuesday 3rd May 2016
quotequote all
Argument going about whether an MP knows if in the sentence

'I went to the cinema after I’d eaten my dinner”

'after' is a subordinating conjunction or a preposition
and particularly should primary school kids know?

How many of us know?
Does it affect your every day life? How much do you worry about it?

Someone tell me that in every other country of the world primary kids ( or older) know the difference between a subordinating conjunction and a preposition.


http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/03/b...

williamp

19,213 posts

272 months

Tuesday 3rd May 2016
quotequote all
Romans they go the house?

Lucas CAV

3,021 posts

218 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
saaby93 said:
Argument going about whether an MP knows if in the sentence

'I went to the cinema after I’d eaten my dinner”

'after' is a subordinating conjunction or a preposition
and particularly should primary school kids know?

How many of us know?
Does it affect your every day life? How much do you worry about it?

Someone tell me that in every other country of the world primary kids ( or older) know the difference between a subordinating conjunction and a preposition.


http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/03/b...
Absolutely no idea what either of those terms are -

How have I survived for 5 decades without this knowledge!!

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
williamp said:
Romans they go the house?
Motion towards, boy!

saaby93

Original Poster:

32,038 posts

177 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
williamp said:
Romans they go the house?
As long as no one suggests their dinner may be fit for Jehova

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8



Edited by saaby93 on Wednesday 4th May 00:09

Bring on the clowns

1,339 posts

183 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
I heard that live, ironically on the way to a school meeting. This is the second time recently that I've heard questions posed to 'people who should know' where the obvious appearance of a preposition (that was not) seemed to be a deliberate trap. My worry is that some of the test questions used as the basis for these might also be set-up, trap like, to really test children. If so, many in the heat and rush of a test (and given their young age, at 10 or 11 years) might well fall for it and make errors they probably wouldn't in class.

The way in which children are often taught to recognise a subordinating conjunction (effectively) is to look for a subject and a verb following the cue, leading to a subordinate clause. Gibbs was right that after can be a preposition, but missed the trick here and then flapped, trying to say it could sometimes be a conjunction, then that it "wasn't about me"! They never learn. Perhaps he should tale a leaf out of Cameron's book and plead the Nicky Morgan defence.

saaby93

Original Poster:

32,038 posts

177 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
Bring on the clowns said:
The way in which children are often taught to recognise a subordinating conjunction (effectively) is to look for a subject and a verb following the cue, leading to a subordinate clause. Gibbs was right that after can be a preposition, but missed the trick here
When you say 'are often'
How often?
Do most kids in school know this today?

dandarez

13,246 posts

282 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
saaby93 said:
Argument going about whether an MP knows if in the sentence

'I went to the cinema after I’d eaten my dinner”

'after' is a subordinating conjunction or a preposition
and particularly should primary school kids know?

How many of us know?
Does it affect your every day life? How much do you worry about it?

Someone tell me that in every other country of the world primary kids ( or older) know the difference between a subordinating conjunction and a preposition.


http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/03/b...
It's a subordinating conjunction and the fact that the clueless education minister (identified with the tests) utterly failed, miserably so, in answering it correctly, tells you everything!
6-7 year olds don't need to know about subordinating conjunctions. There is plenty of time ahead for them as they get older. 6-7 years old FFS!!

Eamonn Holmes early this morning said 'kids hate going to school anyway so does it matter?'
Yes, it does matter. And shows how out of touch he is. Most kids of 4,5,6 and 7 will skip joyously to school, they love it! I sometimes take our granddaughter. She absolutely loves school! Her sister is just over 2 years old has started playschool. Her face literally lights up on the days she goes. Their innocence is a joy.

F. leave it that way until they are older. There is enough stress later on without it this early on.
And yes, the 6 year old is getting her education. Her spelling (something that matters more than knowing what a subordinating conjunction is at 6 or 7) is better than somemany on here!


Murph7355

37,651 posts

255 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
dandarez said:
....
Eamonn Holmes ...
I can no longer see or hear his name without dog's lipstick springing to mind.

(Agree on the rest of your post btw).

Bring on the clowns

1,339 posts

183 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
saaby93 said:
Bring on the clowns said:
The way in which children are often taught to recognise a subordinating conjunction (effectively) is to look for a subject and a verb following the cue, leading to a subordinate clause. Gibbs was right that after can be a preposition, but missed the trick here
When you say 'are often'
How often?
Do most kids in school know this today?
By the end of ks2 children are expected to know about, to understand and to recognise and distinguish between such niceties as subordinating and coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, relative clauses, adverbial phrases etc. They'd have to answer in copperplate if Gibb had his way!

jmorgan

36,010 posts

283 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
Never heard of that first term, until now. Sounds like a random string of words used by a crystal dangler.

Diderot

7,263 posts

191 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
The problem is that we've had decades of apologists who have systematically dumbed down GCSEs and A Levels, decades of 'every one is a winner' and decades of 'don't worry about grammar or spelling or syntax, just express yourself' in schools. What this means is that when the little blighters get to University (that's nearly 50% of each cohort remember) so many of them are functionally illiterate and indeed barely numerate. The number of students who seriously cannot string two sentences together is alarming. At least someone is trying to do something to address the issue.

markh1973

1,787 posts

167 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
dandarez said:
It's a subordinating conjunction and the fact that the clueless education minister (identified with the tests) utterly failed, miserably so, in answering it correctly, tells you everything!
6-7 year olds don't need to know about subordinating conjunctions. There is plenty of time ahead for them as they get older. 6-7 years old FFS!!

Eamonn Holmes early this morning said 'kids hate going to school anyway so does it matter?'
Yes, it does matter. And shows how out of touch he is. Most kids of 4,5,6 and 7 will skip joyously to school, they love it! I sometimes take our granddaughter. She absolutely loves school! Her sister is just over 2 years old has started playschool. Her face literally lights up on the days she goes. Their innocence is a joy.

F. leave it that way until they are older. There is enough stress later on without it this early on.
And yes, the 6 year old is getting her education. Her spelling (something that matters more than knowing what a subordinating conjunction is at 6 or 7) is better than somemany on here!

6 and 7 year olds don't learn about subordinating conjunctions. They leave that til they are 10 or 11 and have to do KS2 SATS. I will ask my 11 year old the question and see what he says.

4x4Tyke

6,506 posts

131 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
Bring on the clowns said:
The way in which children are often taught to recognise a subordinating conjunction (effectively) is to look for a subject and a verb following the cue, leading to a subordinate clause. Gibbs was right that after can be a preposition, but missed the trick here and then flapped, trying to say it could sometimes be a conjunction, then that it "wasn't about me"! They never learn. Perhaps he should tale a leaf out of Cameron's book and plead the Nicky Morgan defence.
Am I the only one to think this is gibberish? I understand every word used but the overall meaning is completely opaque. Presumable it is supposed to be satire.

The purpose of writing is communication not obfuscation, it is clear that education policy in regard of these tests is complete shambles.

Mabbs9

1,072 posts

217 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
A test is pointless if everyone gets 100%. So they throw in some hard questions that few or any will know the correct answer.

dav123a

1,220 posts

158 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
Diderot said:
At least someone is trying to do something to address the issue.
That's part of the problem something must be done and so we end up with this. It's a nonsense to think this will fix anything.

saaby93

Original Poster:

32,038 posts

177 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
Diderot said:
The problem is that we've had decades of apologists who have systematically dumbed down GCSEs and A Levels, decades of 'every one is a winner' and decades of 'don't worry about grammar or spelling or syntax, just express yourself' in schools. What this means is that when the little blighters get to University (that's nearly 50% of each cohort remember) so many of them are functionally illiterate and indeed barely numerate. The number of students who seriously cannot string two sentences together is alarming. ....
that maybe so but do you think scaring them with jargon is going to help them come around or do you think it will lead to further separation, those who can be bothered showing an interest in this type of thing, and those for which this is the final straw, who retreat further into the corner of the room to learn about the sticky effects of chewing gum?


rovermorris999

5,195 posts

188 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
At 6 or 7 we had tests weekly in various subjects and thought nothing of it. It was just the normal thing and they weren't built up into something big or horrendous. Just part of life.

Derek Smith

45,514 posts

247 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
I had an English teacher who loved the language and was able to transfer this love to her charges. For the two terms before our GCEs we went from learning to being taught how to identify tenses and such and, most importantly, name them.

I write as a hobby and make a bit of money from it. The learning by rote and knowing what pluperfect means has, or should that be had, no benefit.

For a while I was an instructor and my colleagues and I once complained that our only function was to get students through examinations. We taught in order to test. Our boss was a refugee from a comprehensive school and he said: 'Welcome to my old life.'

Being tested on the names of tenses is like having a written examination before a boxing match.


Bring on the clowns

1,339 posts

183 months

Wednesday 4th May 2016
quotequote all
4x4Tyke said:
Bring on the clowns said:
The way in which children are often taught to recognise a subordinating conjunction (effectively) is to look for a subject and a verb following the cue, leading to a subordinate clause. Gibbs was right that after can be a preposition, but missed the trick here and then flapped, trying to say it could sometimes be a conjunction, then that it "wasn't about me"! They never learn. Perhaps he should tale a leaf out of Cameron's book and plead the Nicky Morgan defence.
Am I the only one to think this is gibberish? I understand every word used but the overall meaning is completely opaque. Presumable it is supposed to be satire.

The purpose of writing is communication not obfuscation, it is clear that education policy in regard of these tests is complete shambles.
Gibberish and opaque? My response or the terms and expected teaching and use of these in the National Curriculum?