

How to teach to code (a different approach) - juanpablo
http://rhodesmill.org/brandon/2008/reading-code-curriculum/

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brianto2010
My favorite quote:

> _"By showing them the full complexity of the target language, even at the
> early stage where all they can do is 'find and circle the subject of each
> sentence', you are beginning to teach them what their writing will look like
> on that distant day when what they produce is full-fledged speech. And,
> critically, you are not allowing them to mistake the crude and lopsided
> sentences they create in their homework for the real, fluid, and graceful
> language that is French. "_

My Spanish teacher once said that you should listen more than you speak. When
you listen, you learn. When you listen, you will be subtly exposed to concepts
that cannot be taught well by describing them: how words sound, the flow of a
sentence, patterns in sentence constructs (ex reflexive verbs, indirect
object), and _what sounds right_. When you're speaking, you lose that
opportunity to learn and you are relying solely on your own knowledge. You
miss the opportunity to grow. You are only practicing and you drilling.

Likewise, in coding, this immersion into code is comparable to listening: you
learn language patterns and some formal syntax, you learn new 'vocabulary',
and you learn _what looks right_. Writing code (speaking) on your own when you
start learning how to program is the same as hardening nonexistent skills in a
subject you are completely new to.

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moeffju
I can agree that teaching people how to code well is more important than
teaching people the grammar of a computer language. Then again, that fact is
supposedly pretty obvious, and yet the existing approaches to teaching
programming or development obviously suck - a lot. So how does author hope to
change anything through blogging what could not be changed through awareness?

This is very much a political decision, I'd think. So go out and... do?

