FrontPage > What is X-Word Grammar?
"I was introduced to a new language and approach to teaching English, a very clear and practical approach. It is exciting to see a sentence in a new way --- what changes and what stays the same when modifying sentences."
Getting Started
If you're new to Xword Grammar, you are in the right place!
Read this page first, then read these two articles for a good overview:
What is Xword Grammar?
Xword Grammar came out of Sector Analysis, the work of the late Dr. Robert L. Allen, Teachers College, Columbia University. Some of Dr. Allen’s graduate students applied sector analysis to the classroom teaching of English and the term Xword Grammar was coined. The X in Xword Grammar stands for our elegant auXiliary verbs that help make the English verb system so simple and, yes, regular. Xword Grammar stresses the word order of English, the regularity, and relative simplicity of its syntax. It helps students (and teachers!) discover what a "sentence" really is. It gives writers and ESL students a framework with which to create well-ordered sentences that express their thoughts.
For historical reasons, most grammar books have tried to use rules and terms appropriate for Latin grammar to teach English. Bill Bryson, in The Mother Tongue, writes, "English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin—a language with which it has precious little in common...Making English conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity."
Most books still try to fit a square peg into a round hole by forcing English, a lightly inflected, word- order based Germanic language, to conform to the rules of Latin.
This wiki is for anyone who has shared these frustrations. I hope we can work together to make it a rich resource. --Bonny Hart
Who is it good for?
Our members have used Xword Grammar/Sector Analysis for
- Students of English for Speakers of Other Languages
- Remedial reading and writing
- Native speakers who need to improve their writing
- Teaching Deaf students to become better writers
- Adult Literacy
- Diagnosing problems in writing
- Teaching teachers how to diagnose a student's abilities
- Linguistics classes
I can't think of anyone who could not benefit from an understanding of x-word grammar. I've worked with beginning ESL students all the way to college English instructors, who have all said that x-word has opened up their minds to English. In my opinion, it changes grammar from fragmenting the language to unifying it into the system it really is. -- Richard
Business writers who cannot distinguish subjects from topics benefit from the yes-no question device in editing. It allows them to isolate a point of reader focus and determine if the reader can find an idea there or a filler word. Remarkable changes in edited business letters can be brought about by this and other X-Word Grammar applications. I use it extensively in my Power Writing consulting courses in business and in my upper-level university writing courses in Technical Writing and Writing and Speaking for Professionals.--Dave
As a beginning teacher in mainly community-based ESL programs, I was already frustrated with beginning text books that began with exhaustive attention to the verb “to be”-- the only English verb with eight forms. Many students would leave the program as soon as they got a job, never having learned any other verb. These are the students who say “was go” to try and make the past tense. More advanced grammar books will have a page of rules followed by a page of exceptions. The Xword Grammar approach empowers students and simplifies what could seem an overwhelming task.--Bonny
The utility of sector analysis for reading and writing instruction can readily be seen with the case of inserts (Cf. www.criticalreading.com/inserts.htm). The notion of sectors within sentences provides a perspective for understanding not only a major sentence element, but for understanding a major portion of punctuation issues as well -- all with the avoidance of unnecessary grammatical terminology.--Dan
For pre-matriculating college level students, the discovery through X-Word Grammar of the consistency and patterning of English shifts their thinking. A new paradigm evolves as these higher education students study and apply the visual and holistic concepts behind X-Word Grammar. They become analysts of their own writing and learn to approach their writing with confidence and control. --Tamara
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