Breakthrough to Learning: ahead of its time

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Mary Mason

Ive been reading an article written by Urszula Clark in 2009: Grammar in the
Curriculum for English: what next?
In it she surveys the attempts over the last fifty years to bring explicit teaching
about language into the English curriculum and outlines the kind of syllabus that
such teaching could follow.
These are some of the points she makes:
(1) There is no evidence that teaching grammar per se has any effect on pupils
command of formal written English (noting that no-one takes any notice of research in
these debates*). Teaching about language must be integrated with subject teaching in
order to be effective.
(2) Systemic linguistics as a means of describing the structure of the English language
has underpinned attempts in this country and Australia to bring language study into the
classroom. Although it is excellent for description, it is highly technical and laden with
unfamiliar words. To help classroom teachers get to grips with this powerful tool, a
pedagogic grammar is needed.
(3) Teachers (of reading, for example) are aware of the need to teach at the level of the
word, but are less competent in the equally important structures at the levels of the
sentence and discourse.
(4) There is little, if any, explicit teaching of the difference between narrative texts that
children learn to read and write with and the non-narrative structures of all school
subjects.
It is now twenty-one years since the Wigan Language Project, which taught
Breakthrough to Learning systematically, produced its results (doubling the
percentage of pupils gaining good GCSEs across the curriculum). Clarks article
(though not written for that purpose) gives theoretical reasons why it was so
effective:

(1) The technical teaching about language at every level was integrated with the
language of subjects across the curriculum. For instance, being made aware of nouns
(Book 1, chapter 5) is not an empty exercise but shows us how human beings think: one
cannot begin to study anything without first naming the parts of a structure.
(2) The descriptive basis of BTL is systemic linguistics. However, in teaching a first
version of word-classes (parts of speech) I use the traditional terms (noun, verb etc.) and
keep it simple. The Fasttrack of BTL or, better still, the self-access course Knowledge
About Language, which I produced for PGCE students at UCE in 1997 (when the
Government suddenly required students to have knowledge about language) would
enable teachers to gain an understanding of the complexities of language without
overwhelming them.
Even better, as a first step, is the interactive online course for post 16 students
Language of Ideas, which teaches the structure of language by familiarity, without using
any metalanguage. This would empower teachers to become aware of the special
abstract language of their own subjects.
(3) In all my courses the structure of language at all three levels is taught. Quite the
easiest and most empowering of these is an understanding of discourse structures. This
requires no esoteric metalanguage. It is described in common terms: problem solution,
general particular, compare contrast. It is systematically taught in Book 3 of BTL and
promoted to first place in the Fasttrack. The first two are taught in the context of
examination questions in Language of Ideas.
(4) I drew attention to the failure of English teachers to teach the structure of nonnarrative texts in my recent article for Creative Teaching and Learning. ** (And why
should they teach it, when their own subject uniquely uses narrative as the principal form
of discourse?)
Book 3 of BTL teaches explicitly first narrative structures and then non-narrative
structures.
Clarks article explains in her own terms why BTL produced its amazing results.
Nothing to do with frightening people with tests or reviving ancient dogmas about
grammar, but the result of applying linguistic science to language across the
school curriculum.
* See also Geoff Petty: Evidence Based Teaching

** Death of a Great Idea in Creative Teaching and Learning Volume 2.4: