Educational linguistics

Having spent seven formative years (1964-71) working for Michael Halliday, I am keen to see more linguistics in schools, whatever we call it – ‘Knowledge About Language’, `Language Awareness’, `English Language’ or even `Linguistics’!

• My ideas
• Information pages
  • general
  • literacy and English language
    • the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests
  • foreign languages
  • grammar teaching
  • vocabulary teaching and testing
• Minor research projects
• Training materials for teachers

=========================================================================

My ideas

• My book (1992) about grammar teaching
  • (2012) an unfinished draft book: Becoming a Grammar Teacher
• My papers about education (mostly about grammar)
• My talks about language education
• My contribution to the Language Log.
• The three ongoing organisations that I helped to found and still contribute to for promoting linguistics in language education:
  • CLiE (the Committee for Linguistics in Education).
  • the LAGB Education Committee.
  • the UK Linguistics Olympiad.

Information pages

General

• A-level in Linguistics (a summary of progress so far in developing a new school-level course in linguistics).
• statistical trends in the language education of England (or the UK)
• official documents about
  • language education
  • the teaching of grammar
• historical material on how English and Foreign Languages were taught in the past

Literacy and English language

• The KS1 and KS2 Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG) tests.
  • official documents
  • comments on the SPaG tests
  • research on the effects of the SPaG tests
  • my own views on the SPaG tests and the 2014 National Curriculum for English
  • Some press releases published by an independent educational charity, the Education Media Centre.
    • Comment on the background to the 2016 SPaG tests
    • Comment on the results of the 2016 SPaG tests
• Surveys of success in literacy teaching
• GCSE English assessment objectives (included in documentation by one exam board, AQA):
  • English Language
  • English Literature
• A page of official and factual information about the A-level English Language exam
• (2011) A ‘benchmarking statement’ on degrees in English Language.

Foreign languages

• official reports on Foreign Languages
• media reports on Foreign Languages

Grammar teaching

• Research reports and surveys:
  • on the teaching of L1 English grammar
  • on interactions between L1 and L2 in teaching
  • research reports on whether grammar teaching improves writing
    • A survey of research on the effects of grammar teaching on writing (and other skills)
• Media comments on grammar teaching.
• A list of UK research projects on the teaching of grammar
• (with Geoff Dean) A website about grammar teaching: Teaching grammar.

Minor research projects

• Some pages about the low status of language in UK universities’ so-called ‘language’ departments:
  • the low  research status of language
  • the lack of language components in undergraduate degrees
  • a report from the USA suggesting a similar ‘two-tier’ structure in American universities’ Foreign-language departments.
  • a co-signed letter to the Times Higher Education about the low status of English in ‘English’ departments.
• A page about a grammar audit of undergraduates.
• A page about the extremes of multilingualism
  • About the world record for the number of languages spoken by individuals and by entire communities.

Training materials for teachers

• Grammar in the Secondary National Strategy (2005)
  • A large commentary on the approach to grammar teaching which has been adopted in the Secondary National Strategy (formerly the English strand of the KS3 Strategy, extending the primary-level National Literacy Strategy).
• KS3 grammar  (2003)
  • A large collection of pages full of basic grammar for secondary (Years 7-9) teachers of English, with some self-test exercises and links to the UK National Curriculum.
  • This isn’t yet completely restored, but I’m working on it (March 2016).
  • Also available as a zipped file: KS3 grammar
•  Grammar in the TES (2002-5)
  • A collection of short (450-word) pieces about elementary grammar, called “The writer’s tool-kit”, which I co-wrote with Geoff Barton (a school teacher) for two years. They appeared every week (of term-time) in the Times Educational Supplement.