Environment minister should lose sleep worrying about koala situation

I was shocked to read some statements made by Dr. Stephen Phillips, Australia’s leading koala expert, in an interview with Peter Fitzsimmons (“Is it too late to stop a koala going the same way as the dodo?”, May 21). In 1934, koalas were slaughtered for their skins in Queensland. In the 1990s, there were thousands of koalas in the Piriga bush, but in 2014 they were “pretty much gone.” Yet we continue to cut down native forests and harvest koala edible trees such as tallowwood and gray gum. I don’t understand how the environment minister can sleep at night. Ray Peck, Hawthorne (Vic)

gerund who?

A teacher who knows very little about grammar will find it difficult to “polish” it, let alone teach it. (“Teachers rush to brush up on grammar, May 21) In the old days, we learned grammar by memorization, parsing, analysis, and repetition. Learning the math table was the same process.

This optimistic view of teachers brushing up on knowledge they lack suggests to me that the people who wrote the new English syllabus knew very little about grammar themselves. gerund or gerund, who? Jenny Mooney, Kahlua

As a student in the 1950s and ’60s, the most important and useful parts of the English syllabus were the art of “precision” (finding the essence of the article and reducing unnecessary verbosity) and clear thinking (how the article actually what do you mean) – Note the double negation). I taught them the basics of what nouns/adjectives/adverbs are, and the structure of sentences to make sure the reader understands what you want to convey.

I think we should go back to the basics and learn the beauty of English from scratch. What exactly is “elaboration of noun and verb groups, positioning of adverbial phrases, etc.”? Teachers will teach obfuscation, not clear thinking. And it might spawn a swarm of students writing insurance policies and terms of use for smartphone apps. And, lawyers and politicians, may heaven help us. Remember that English is a medium of communication and should be taught as such. Eve Collie, Coffs Harbor

I have always loved grammar. Ever since I was told not to teach grammar as an English teacher in the early 1970s, I have lamented that instruction. Luckily, my students’ pleas to understand more about foreign language teaching led me to a grammar lesson that I and my students love so much.
Lynn Langtry east ride

I am one of the retired teachers who taught me the basics of grammar in the 1960s. There is no need to panic about how uninformed young teachers deal. All you have to do is issue a theater-related textbook for every student and an appropriate manual for each teacher. Reduces stress. Eva Baden tinony

Wisdom of Ross

Jacqueline Maily has money to spare, pointing out that Philip Roth will pave the way for the future in his 2003 novel about “cancel culture” human dirt (“Ross says fiction readers will become extinct”, May 21). But Ross is even better at predicting the arrival of Donald Trump. conspiracy against america In 2004, Charles Lindbergh was elected president as a right-wing fascist allied with the United States and Hitler, writing that he would start a roundup of unwanted people in the United States. John Maltby Hunter’s Hill