Love, Grammar, and Oxen
Written in tribute to my friend and fellow ESL teacher, Ellen H., with gratitude for her life and faithful example.
This morning as we were walking to our language lesson, we passed a field where a farmer was plowing behind a pair of oxen. We had only recently learned the word for “ox,” so we stopped to watch them. It’s a big boost to learning when new vocabulary comes to life! 
This is the time of year when rice farmers cultivate their fields, flood them with water, and then transplant the small rice shoots into shimmering green rows. As the oxen turned the corner near us, we exchanged greetings with the farmer and then continued on our way.
I’ve been thinking a lot about grammar lately, because we’ve been running into challenges in our language learning- characteristics of this language that make it different from English, and in some cases different from any of the four languages we’ve studied. Even though she is well-educated, our language helper has never thought much about the underlying structure of her native language, so when we try to get her help in understanding these challenging characteristics, she feels nervous. She may have less-than-pleasant memories of studying English grammar in school! She isn’t alone in her anxiety about grammar; many people, speaking many different languages, share her feelings.
Grammar is essentially the underlying patterns that people use when they communicate; most people don’t think much about it when they’re speaking their native tongue. But in learning a new language, understanding those patterns becomes very important. Grammar enables me to say, “Those are sheep feet you’re cooking!” instead of, “Those sheep are cooking your feet!” Sometime soon, I will use grammar patterns to say, “You look worried. Is there something wrong? Can I pray for you?”
After our language lesson I was reflecting on grammar and its uses, and we passed the rice field again. That’s it, I realized– grammar is like an ox! It’s powerful, and it can do hard work for us, but it can also be scary and destructive if it’s let loose in the wrong place! Like an ox, grammar is a domestic animal; trained and yoked, it can help us do more in our work of communication than we could do without it. But the yoke is built for two animals. What should be yoked beside grammar in order to plow straight furrows of real communication?
Love. When love and grammar are yoked together, they can work side by side and lead me forward in plowing deep furrows of communication with my new neighbors. In that fertile soil I can plant seeds of understanding. And I’m looking forward to a rich crop of relationships!
Posted in Uncategorized and tagged grammar by Lisa