allthingslinguistic:

“Armed with such [linguistic] knowledge, teachers could impart grammar not as an onslaught of desiccated definitions or things to underline, but puzzles to solve. Why does “She destroyed” not feel like a full sentence? (That allows the introduction of concepts such as “direct object”.) How does Shakespeare use “do” differently from modern writers? (Here you can sneak in historical linguistics.) Where might you hear “we was” instead of “we were”? (This can introduce class, dialect and situational appropriateness.) One study found that adding this kind of analysis—albeit in foreign-language classes, not English—made almost 60% of the pupils want to learn more linguistics, particularly language history. Meanwhile the “Linguistics Olympiad” is a popular extra-curricular contest that instils linguistic thinking; perhaps everyone should take part.”

— The agony and the ecstasy of grammar