Grammar is bad for kids
"Teaching
English grammar in schools is a waste of time because it does not
improve writing skills, according to a Government-funded study
published yesterday. The findings have led senior academics to urge
Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, to remove the compulsory teaching
of parts of speech and syntax from the national curriculum."
So says an
article
in The Telegraph of Jan 22 2005 (via
Onze Taal). One might,
of course, take issue with several aspects of the position reported.
- The finding, from a study by Richard Andrews of York University,
is not based upon a controlled study. Rather, it is based on historical
data tracking evaluations of writing across a period in which the UK
law changed as regards curricular requirements. I know of no controlled
study of whether teaching grammar helps writing, but email me (dib AT
stanford DOT edu) if you know better. Furthermore, any such assessment
must depend on an independent characterization of what constitutes good
writing.
- Teachers of writing in the UK do not, to my knowledge, standardly
receive any systematic instruction in linguistics. I am confident that
in all my years of education in the UK, I never had an English teacher
who knew what linguistics was. So any grammar instruction I received
probably would have been detrimental to my writing, had I paid any
attention. More generally, one could take the same sort of study
as the Telegraph reports on, and conclude that grammar teaching is at
present not adequate to have an effect on writing. In that case, there
should be more emphasis on grammar, especially in the training of
teachers, not less.
- Understanding the nature of language, and learning how to think
about language for yourself, is independently valuable: it is an
important aspect of human culture in its own right, and if used
properly is relevant to other areas, such as general critical thinking
skills and second language learning. Teaching how language works does
not need to be justified solely by its effects on writing skills.
The way grammar has traditionally been taught in the UK is as dull as
dishwater. (By a Google count,
dishwater
and
dish water are together 5
times as dull as
ditchwater, or
ditch water, but I'm not sure
which was the earlier idiom.) Perhaps the problem is that much grammar
teaching is uninsightful taxonomizing, rote teaching of parts of speech
and syntax? Personal opinion: if anything is going to help kids write,
it is not a bunch of rules and labels, which will just cramp kids'
style and give them premature writer's block. What is needed is a way
to help kids think about the structure of language for themselves, a
basic scaffolding, and a way to jump effortlessly from one structure to
the next.
Posted by David Beaver at January 28, 2005 02:18 PM