Robins or pinguins?

"Is it a robin or a pinguin?"; we are asked all the time by the teacher.

Let me explain:
A robin ( a typical blac bird, which you can call a typical bird because it flies and lais eggs in a nest) is a item in grammar which follows the "rules" and acts like "normal"
A pinguin (not the kind of bird you would normally think of and it can't fly) on the other hand is a grammar item that doesn't act like "normal".
So when you have a sentense or item  that follows the "normal" pattern, you also have a robin.
Do you have a sentense or item that doen't follow the "normal" pattern, you have a pinguin!

Today we had your third workshop, where we worked on "Clause structure, complements and adjuncts". Friday after we had had a lecture about these terms I sat for a few hours working on the exercises with two others. This was very beneficial because we had time to think out loud and discuss the exercises. On the other hand, when I sat alone in the weekend, I the exercises felf much harder.
Todays workshop was different from the others we have had. First we got one hours to do the exercises for one chapter, and then we talked about some of them.
Actually we ended up analyzing a lot of sentences on the board, with the teacher as our guide, and the students as pupils thinking out loud. In the group I sat in, we agreed that todays workshop was better than the privious ones.
All the schaffolding the teacher did with us today has to do with the feedback we gave her last week; she asked for one thing that was good about the course, and one thing we thought could be improved. It sounded like people understod more today, which was also my impression.

Grammar, Grammar and more Grammar :-)

First I'll have to quote my teacher: " Grammar is like an onion, you have to peal it, and it will make you cry!" This was followed by; "Onions are good!".
Our Grammar teacher, Anna, is really into grammar, gues she has to be in order to teach grammar. She is always up for discussions about what is right and what is wrong, and as long as we can argue for what we think is right "grammar" we are right. And I believe this is true, because grammar can be analyzed at different levels, which is also what we are taught.

The grammar class is a mix of lectures and workshops. Lectures where Anna is lecturing us from her powerpoint. Her powerpoints are alway were colorful. In the workshops, we, the students, have to work. In one of our books there are questions at the end of each chapter, we talk about these, and do some worksheets as well. We have only had one workshop, but on Monday we will have one on verbs.

We are reading about and working with verbs at the moment. And I would never have thought it would be so complex. For one thing, we don't talk about the past tense, because "past tense" are not the right words to use about words written in the "past tense". Confused? The reason for this is, that some words in the "past tense" is used to express the future (could you pass me the salt?) So what I knew as the past tense is now called: preterite. Next time I write on my blog I'll try to give you the names for the other forms of tenses. It's a whole new world for me!

But I must say I enjoy it.