Grammar: where next in English teaching?

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) are thinking about how the English curriculum might change
for the 21st century. We want to provoke thinking about what should be the range and quality of young people's
use of language in 2015, and what kind of role the teaching of grammar should play in supporting this.

It's an opportunity to consider for both spoken and written grammar:

. the competing claims of accuracy and creativity, and
. the extent to which language should be studied.

We would like to hear your thoughts on the following questions to inform both our thinking on English 21 and a
public debate we are planning to hold in June 2005.
. What are the essential things that all children should know about language at (e.g.) age 11,
age 14, age 16?
. Is there additional knowledge that some children might have?

. What counts as 'getting better' in grammatical knowledge and understanding about

language?

You can submit your thoughts to english21@qca.org.uk or send them to: English 21, QCA, 83 Piccadilly, London
W1J 8QA. We are hoping for responses of no more than 500 words by Fridav 27 Mav.

Please provide information about this contribution:

Name of contributor:
Richard Hudson, on behalf of the Education Committee of the Linguistics Association of Great
Britain.
E-mail address:
dick@ling.ucl.ac.uk
Address:
57 Park Avenue North, London N8 7RS

Please complete and sign the confidentiality declaration statement:

What do you want QCA to keep confidential?Nothing

o Nothing 0 Whole response
o Name/address/contact details 0 Organisation
Note: QCA may still refer to the contents of responses in general terms, without disclosing specific information that is
confidential. QCA will manage any information received, as part of this consultation, in accordance with the Data
Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Declaration
I confirm that this is a contribution to QCA's English 21 project. It can be published in full, electronically on- or off-line or
in print, unless otherwise specified above. If I have sent this response bye-mail, QCA can disregard any standard e-mail
text about not disclosing em ail contents and attachments.

Name: Richard Hudson Signature (if hard copy):

 Comments by the Education Committee of the Linguistics Association of Great Britain

Grammar: where next in English teaching

What are the essential things that all children should know about language at
(e.g.) age 11, age 14, age 16?

Children should be able to talk about words and patterns of words using technical
terminology accurately; this is analytical thinking applied to texts. Through an
exploration of the linguistic variation that surrounds them on a daily basis, and
through an analysis of their own creative use of spoken and written language, all
children should acquire a greater understanding of structural and functional
characteristics of English.

By age 11, children should have an understanding of:

A. Word structure and meaning (the main word classes and their inflectional
properties; roots, suffixes and prefixes; lexical relations)

B. Clause and sentence structure (sentence and clause; how clauses combine to
make sentences by coordination; how to find a verb’s subject and object and a noun’s
modifiers)

C. Standard and non-standard varieties (some grammatical features of the local

non-standard dialect; the different functions of standard and non-standard varieties)

MFL link
Some simple differences between languages, e.g. in names or greetings.

By age 14, children should have an understanding of:

A. Word structure (the relationship between a word’s spelling, its morphology, and
its pronunciation; the organisation of roots and affixes within a word; the sub-classes
of the main word classes)

B. Clause structure (the relationship between formality and grammatical variation;

variation in word order and its effects; how subordination works; the relationship
between punctuation and information ordering)

C. Spelling and pronunciation (the basic principles behind the International

Phonetic Alphabet, e.g. differences between pronunciation and spelling, and the main
consonant and vowel symbols for English and a MFL)

D. Variation and change (the relationship between varieties of English,

synchronically and diachronically)

MFL link
Differences in writing and spelling systems, and in sentence structure, between
English and other languages.

By age 16, children should have an understanding of:

A. Structure and function (how to select the best grammatical structure to convey
the intended meaning; how word choice affects readability and clarity)
B. Relationships between languages (how languages may be historically related,
and how words borrowed from different languages may show their origins in their
spelling; the role of classical and modern languages in the development of English)
MFL link:
How to guess words in FL from their English cognates; differences between the FL
rules for word order and agreement and their English equivalents.

Is there additional knowledge that some children might have?

Some children should learn more about language as a system, as illustrated by the
following questions, which would also allow comparison between (a) standard English
and the local non-standard dialect and/or (b) English and some other language.
Age 11:
 What is the relationship between syllables, stress and rhythm?
 What are the most common suffixes? How do they affect word classes (e.g. by
converting verbs into nouns) or mark inflectional categories (e.g. number and
tense)?
Age 14:
 How are declarative, interrogative and imperative clauses distinguished?
 How are subordinate clauses signalled?
 How many tenses does English have?
 How do we choose between pronouns and nouns when referring to a person or
thing?
Age 16:
 How are relative clauses distinguished from other clauses?
 How do we choose between determiners?
 How does the choice of verb affect the syntax that we use for describing a
scene?

What counts as 'getting better' in grammatical knowledge and understanding

about language?

The following list shows an increasingly demanding set of improvements:

1. More accuracy in analysis.
2. Identifying categories and relations between categories.
3. Understanding categorisation.
4. Being able to explain and justify analyses.