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Grammar schools and school grammars

Richard HudsonBritish Library, July 2014

or: Does English grammar have a future?

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Main points

• Grammar is old, international and big• It’s an important part of education– for first language literacy– for foreign languages– for general thinking

• It needs strong intellectual underpinnings– if these disappear, it dies– but it can revive

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1.1 The birth of grammar

Panini?5c BC

Babylon2K BC

Greece5c BC

Alexandria3c BC

Rome1c BC

Ireland6c AD

Baghdad8c AD

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Medieval education

• School– Latin!– Via grammar-translation method– So new schools were called ‘grammar schools’• in the USA, grammar schools are elementary schools

• University– Trivium – grammar, logic, rhetoric– Quadrivium – maths, music, geometry, astronomy

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1542 Henry VIII and grammar

Henry the VIII ... to all schoolemaisters and

teachers of grammer within his realm greetynge. ... we will and commaunde ... as you intende to auoyde our

displeasure ... to teache and learne your scholars this englysshe introduction ...

and none other ...

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A grammar of Latin – and English

When an englysshe is gyuen to be made in latyn, loke out the pryncipal verbe. If there be mo verbes than one the fyrst is the principall verbe, except it be ...

•If you want to translate an English sentence, first analyse its grammar. • First find the ‘main verb’ – the non-subordinate finite verb.

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Lily’s English grammar of Latin

• Lily’s grammar involved some of the best brains of the time– including Erasmus of Rotterdam

• It had the royal monopoly for 350 years• So it was the grammar learned, at age 7, by– Shakespeare– Newton– Wordsworth

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Enthusiasm for Lily, 1709 edition

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But does English really have a future tense?

1761: The Rudiments of English grammar

by Joseph Priestley

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The death of grammar

• 1920-1960: grammar research died in the UK• “[it is] impossible at the present juncture to

teach English grammar in the schools for the simple reason that no-one knows exactly what it is”

• 1960+: end of optional grammar question in O-level English

1921: The teaching of English in England (The Newbolt Report)

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Grammar research reborn

• 1959: Randolph Quirk founded the Survey of English Usage at UCL

• 1972: Quirk et al wrote the first blockbuster grammar of English

• 2002: Huddleston & Pullum wrote the fifth

• A UK triumph!

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Meanwhile, at school ...

• New English teachers had never learned grammar.– so they didn’t teach it.

• So foreign-language teachers couldn’t use grammatical terminology– so they opted for grammar-free methods

• So by 2009 school-leavers knew even less terminology than in 1986

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Did it matter?

• Yes, because sensible grammar helps writing and reading.

• Yes, because sensible grammar helps learning of foreign languages.

• Yes, because English and foreign languages overlap in grammar– and support each other.

• So what happened?

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The language crisis

Evening Standard 2011

Telegraph 2014

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Grammar teaching reborn

• The National Curriculum for English includes grammar– has done since 1990, but very little effect– but now, KS2 pupils are tested on Spelling,

Grammar and Punctuation– and KS1 in 2016

• Primary teachers accept the need for grammar– including the UK Literacy Association

The UKLA grammar: Jim Crinson with Year 3

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For a healthy future, grammar should be ...

• Research-based– tense (grammar) is separate from time (meaning)– present-tense modal WILL shows future time– past-tense would shows future-in-past• e.g. He would later regret this decision

• Shared by English and foreign languages– French grammar is different– but German is similar

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A healthy future needs ...

• consistent terminology (e.g. tense vs time)– LAGB members are working on a glossary– allows grammar to grow across years

• test and reward for grammatical skill– compare arithmetic

• diagramming for complex structures

– We will have been waiting two hours by 5 o’clock

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Explaining German word order

Morgen werde ich Grammatik erklären können.tomorrow will I grammar explain canTomorrow I’ll be able to explain grammar.

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Final messages

• For educators: use grammarians – schools– government– exam boards – publishers – the media– HE English and foreign languages

• For grammarians: be ready to help– know the curriculum– think about school grammar