Geek Heaven

"Ying and me went to Akron art museum last Thursday, where our English teacher Sharon suggested us to go."

This sentence, from a short essay written by one of my advanced conversation students, dominated most of our class last evening.

I was delighted that some of the students had gone to the museum, despite the fact that I had to miss class last week. I was even more delighted that two of them wrote about their experience there and shared what they had written with us. This opening sentence of Yuwei's essay seemed the perfect example to begin correcting grammatical mistakes.

Changing me to I in the subject was easy and evident for the students, as was inserting a definite article in front of Akron art museum. Van even picked up on putting commas around the appositive, Sharon.

No one seemed to want to do anything with the final clause that begins with the verb suggest.

"So, what you're really saying here," I began, "is that Sharon suggested that we go to the museum, right? And in English we can eliminate the that if it's followed by a subject and verb…"

Yuwei and Ying both had deeply furrowed brows; Van and Jana looked mildly confused.

"You can suggest a noun, like a restaurant or a movie," I said, trying to make the distinction. "As in, he suggested a new restaurant to try, or she suggested a good movie for the class. Otherwise, you suggest that someone do something…"

"But the rule is to use an object and a to verb," Yuwei said. "Isn't it like the verb advise? He advised me to go…"

Hmmm. He was right about the verb advise, and I couldn't quite articulate how this verb was different. I started to think maybe suggest used the subjunctive mood, like it is important that he be on time. But that didn't make sense either. I tried it with other subjects on the white board.

He suggested she take a nap. I suggest that you leave immediately. The teacher suggested they try another book. The third-person sure felt like the subjunctive, but the others were ambiguous.

The more we discussed it and tried to parse it out, the less clear it was to me. After twenty minutes or so, I admitted defeat.

"You know," I said. "I'm going to have to look this up and get back to you next week. I feel confident that I am right, but I can't explain why!"

We all laughed a little and turned to other subjects.

I would have thought that a failure in teaching like this might unnerve me or cause me some embarrassment. It didn't, though. Coming up against a grammatical point that I couldn't quickly and easily explain was something of a revelation for me. I found it exhilarating!

Today, as I looked up some information about the verb suggest, I found several interesting websites for ESL learners, and for English grammar in general, that will be very useful for the class and me. I am very excited that this more advanced class challenges me and pushes the limits of what I know about language and grammar. It is a 180 from the basic level refugee classes, and a welcome one.

I found an answer, though obliquely, by looking at other issues with relative clauses, and by looking at detailed definitions of suggest in Merriam-Webster Online. Suggest can take a direct and an indirect object, which is how we can suggest something to someone. I had suggested to the class (indirect object) that they go to the museum (direct object). So Yuwei's sentence should read: Ying and I went to the Akron Art Museum last Thursday, where our English teacher, Sharon, suggested that we go. (This includes only the direct object, as the indirect object is understood and would be redundant to state.)

I am in full-on, geeked-out, English grammar heaven with this class!