Why education needs grammar

1. Why education needs grammar Dick Hudson Ealing U3A, September 2017

2. My agenda • Memory Lane • Now • So what? • What’s the use of grammar teaching? • Why not?

3. 1. Memory Lane: sentence analysis invented in Germany 1827

4. Or trees? invented in USA 1877

5. O-level 1966 RIP grammar teaching

6. 2. Now: Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar(SPaG) • Since 2013, every child in Year 6 (age 10-11) has taken a national SPaG test. • Alongside tests in maths and reading. • Also at the end of Year 2, but this will be optional from 2023. • The results are reported to schools and to parents. • In 2017, 77% of children passed in SPaG • slightly higher than in the other subjects • higher than in 2016 • Here are the 16 grammar questions from 2017

7. Classifying a word

8. Classifying a grammatically ambiguous word

9. Providing an example of a word class

10. Finding an example of a sentence class

11. Finding a subordinate clause

12. Finding an example of a clause class

13. Finding two examples of a word class

14. Finding a word defined by function, not class

15. Finding an example of a word sub-class

16. Providing a prefix defined by meaning

17. Providing members of a ‘word family’

18. Providing a word defined by its class and ‘family’

19. Changing a sentence’s ‘voice’

20. Changing a verb’s tense and ‘aspect’

21. Providing a phrase defined by class

22. Classifying an irregular word

23. 3. So what? • This is the first test of grammatical knowledge since 1966 • but that was only O-level English, for the top 25% • Most (but not all) English teachers stopped teaching grammar then • and about a decade later so did most foreign-language teachers • so most future teachers stopped learning any grammar • The National Curriculum has included grammar since 1990 • but this made very little difference. • So this is the end of about 50 grammar-free years of schooling.

24. Hooray? • Is this reintroduction of grammar a Good Thing? • or should grandparents be grumbling about it? • Some people grumble a lot, e.g. Michael Rosen “... to make the tests valid, education has to be narrowed down to facts that must not be debated or interpreted. There can be no debate or choice over what knowledge is being tested. The learner is reduced to a receptacle that either does or does not regurgitate the facts. ...” • But others are happy, e.g. most children sitting the tests. • Let’s look at the pros and cons.

25. Arguments against grammar-teaching in English • Children already know the grammar of English so they don’t need to be taught it. • But they don’t know about it and can’t talk about it. • Learning to name word classes and patterns is pointless. • But only if that’s all there is to grammar teaching. • Research has shown that teaching grammar doesn’t improve writing. • But only if the two are taught separately. • Grammar is boring. • Teachers don’t know enough grammar.

26. 4. What’s the use of grammar teaching? • Good for writing • Good for reading • Good for learning foreign languages • Good for other subjects • Good for thinking

27. Grammar for writing • 14 year old • About H G Wells’s “War of the Worlds”

28. Grammar to the rescue! • ‘adjectives are describing words’ • so any description must use lots of adjectives! • No evidence that there are ‘many adjectives’. • ‘uses many adjectives’ • written grammar – unlike ‘bit of writing’

29. Apostrophes and more • apostrophes demand grammar! • ‘worst possible words’ - actually word meanings! • ‘describes ... as ...’ • ‘painfull’ – the suffix is always ‘-ful’

30. Grammar for reading • ‘I see you feel as I do,’ said Mr. Enfield. ‘Yes, it’s a bad story. For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good. • Jekell and Hyde (GCSE set text) • ‘could have to do with’ • ‘the very pink of’ • ‘my man’ ... ‘your fellows’ • ‘a fellow ... a really damnable man’ - apposition

31. Grammar for foreign languages • online language course • “The best way to learn Italian online! Listening and speaking focus, no grammar, practical, easy and effective.” • But Italian has grammar so why not learn it? • Otherwise how can you make sense of examples like these? • il mio libro ‘my book’ • la mia casa ‘my house’ • mia madre ‘my mother’ • mamma mia ‘my mother’

32. Grammar for other subjects • RUNNING IN HOT WEATHER. During long-distance running, body temperature rises and sweating occurs. If runners do not drink enough to replace the water they lose through sweating, they can experience dehydration. Water loss of 2% of body mass and above is considered to be a state of dehydration. • Called ‘nominal style’ • nouns closely related in meaning and form to verbs. • Very typical of science

33. Grammar for thinking • Conventional grammar: • I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t rain soon. • Don’t trust grammar – it can be out of step with meaning and logic. • Complex grammar: • No head wound is too insignificant to be ignored. • No head wound is too insignificant to be treated. • Beware of complex grammar! - too many negatives • I didn’t say nothing. • Standard: Denies that I said nothing, so I said something. • Non-standard: Nothing and didn’t agree. • How about: ‘I didn’t say nothing to nobody’?

34. 5. Why not? Grammar’s PR problem • Myth 1: It’s just ‘the naming of parts’. • No: The names are just tools for discussion and exploration. • Myth 2: It’s just memorisation and regurgitation. • e.g. memorizing ‘A verb is a doing word’ • No: Such definitions aren’t worth remembering. • The intellectual challenge is to applythe classifications. • Myth 3: It’s boring. • No: It can be riveting. • E.g. primary class discussing the difference between the and a.

35. And the Big Problem • Most teachers have never studied grammar so • they don’t know enough to teach it • they can’t teach it as they were taught it • they don’t want to teach it. • Contrast Netherlands and France: • official policy is no grammar, but teachers love it so they teach it anyway. • Contrast 16th-century England: • Grammar schools taught grammar, and little else! • Henry VIII authorised a grammar just before the Book of Common Prayer! • used by Shakespeare and Newton.

36. Thank you • This talk is available for download at: http://dickhudson.com/talks/