The EDUCATION COMMITTEE of the LAGB
Special sessions at LAGB meetings:

Linguistics at school 

last revised 23 December 2011

These meetings take place between 2.00 and 4.00 in the second or third afternoon of a regular LAGB meetin. Unlike all other parts of LAGB conferences, they are open to all without payment of the usual conference fee.

For more information about the conference venue - e.g. how to get there - see the second circular for the conference on the LAGB web site or on the site indicated below.

Historical note: This series of meetings, under the aegis of the Education Committee, followed an earlier series called the 'Educational Linguistics section', which was started in September 1983.

20. Grammatical terminology (6 or 7 September 2012, Salford)

The session will be devoted to the following question:

Is a unified terminology possible for grammar?

It will consider variation in terminology both across theories and also across object languages, and will consider it from two points of view: academic and pedagogical. Our research may push us towards diversity of terminology because categories in different languages and different theories are fundamentally incommensurable; but pedagogy calls for a unified terminology, whether at undergraduate level or in the schools (where grammatical analysis is now firmly embedded in the curriculum). Can the needs of research be reconciled with those of pedagogy? And is there a role for the LAGB, e.g. in commissioning a project on grammatical terminology for schools? (See the historical note below for background to the discussion.)

Speakers (all from the Department of Linguistics and English Language, Manchester):

• Prof Nigel Vincent
• Prof John Payne
• Prof David Denison (tbc)

Historical note: This isn't a new issue!! Our meeting will (almost) mark the centenary of the publication (in 1911) of the report of the 'Joint Committee on Grammatical Terminology' which promoted a unified terminology. This project divided academic linguists, with Sonnenschein on one side and Jespersen on the other, and its failure probably hastened the death of grammar in both universities and schools. (For more details, click here.) A hundred years later, can we do better?

19. The UK Linguistics Olympiad (9 September 2011, Manchester) - where?

The session will be devoted to the UK Linguistics Olympiad (a competition in which school children solve linguistics data problems). The speakers will be:

• A school teacher's perspective: Neil Sheldon (Manchester Grammar School)
  • slideshow
• A school student's perspective: Nathan Somers (member of the UK team 2010)
• An HE perspective: Jeanine Treffers-Daller (Reading University and chair of the LLAS SAG on linguistics)
  • slideshow

The discussion will cover all aspects of these olympiads, including their implications for the future of linguistics in schools.

18. Corpora in teaching (3 September 2010, Leeds)

The discussion will address the use of corpora in teaching at both school and university level. The speakers will be:

• Dan Clayton (St Francis Xavier College and Survey of English Usage, UCL): Corpora in English teaching
  • slideshow
• Vivienne Rogers and Zoe Handley (Dept of Education, Oxford): Corpora in Foreign Language teaching.
  • slideshow | handout

17. Typology for schools (7 September 2009, Edinburgh)

Speakers:

• Anna Siewierska and Dik Bakker: Variation in structure: order and meaning
  • The powerpoint show that DB used in his presentation (6.7 Mb)
  • Another one that he had used in schools to explain historical change (3.5 Mb)
• Grev Corbett: Words: forms, uses and complexity
  • The powerpoint show that he used in pdf form (6 Mb).

The speakers will present topics and materials that might be used in schools.

16 Foreign languages: changes at school (and university?) (12 September 2008, University of Essex, Colchester)

How changes in primary and secondary education will affect future undergraduates, and how universities can help. The speakers will be:

• Ros Mitchell (Southampton)
• Teresa Birks (Higher Education Advisor, CILT)

Note: Exceptionally, this session will end formally at 3.20 because of a conflicting item in a parallel session, but those who wish to will be able to continue the discussion till 4.00.

15 Talking to schools (31 August 2007, Kings College London)

How do linguists in HE talk to teachers and students in schools?

• Speakers:
  • Jane Setter (Reading) (slideshow)
  • Kevin Watson (Lancaster): Reaching out to teachers: INSET and CPD at university. (slideshow)
  • Graeme Trousdale (Edinburgh): Developing outreach links between schools and universities in Scotland. (slideshow)
  • Billy Clark (Middlesex): The Language Detective: Working With Gifted
    and Talented A Level Students. (slideshow)

14. How can linguists help schools? (1 September 2006, Newcastle)

More specifically, how can linguists help by providing material for use by teachers? Speakers will be:

• Julie Blake (formerly at Villiers Park Education Trust) on English Language A-level
• Sue Barry (Manchester Metropolitan) on phoneme-grapheme correspondences for primary literacy. presentation
• James Burch (St Martin's College) on Foreign Languages
• Mick Connell (School Improvement Adviser for Rotherham) on English 5-16. slide-show

13. An A-level in Linguistics? (1 September 2005, Cambridge)

Presentation from Subject Centre Special Interest Group on Language at School. (A similar presentation will be given at the Institute of Education, London, 2.30-4.00 on Oct 26th 2005.)

• Speakers: Billy Clark (Middlesex), Judith Broadbent (Roehampton), Dick Hudson (UCL) and Graeme Trousdale (Edinburgh)
• Their powerpoint presentation
• Drafts of the four modules.

12. Teaching linguistics to students of Modern Languages (31 August 2004, Roehampton)

Speakers:

• Paul Rowlett (University of Salford) - handout
• Florence Myles (University of Southampton) - powerpoint

11. A-Level English language (5 September 2003, Oxford)

Speakers:

• Tim Shortis (Chief Examiner, AQA English Language Board and University of Bristol School of Education): What A Level Language students are bringing with them to Higher Education.

  This talk explained the structure of the new AS and A2 A Level Level courses following the revisions made to GCE in 2000. It outlined the the numbers following courses in Language, the six module structure and the assessment objectives. It noted some of the continuity and progression issues relating to GCSE and to Higher Education

• Andrew Moore (School Improvement Service of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council) : Linguistics in schools - A-level English language: is it broken and can we fix it? complete paper

10. Community languages (15 April 2003, Sheffield)

Chair: Anthea Fraser Gupta

Speakers:

• Mahendra Verma (University of York)
• Mike Reynolds (University of Sheffield and Sheffield Multilingual Forum)

Urdu in Sheffield - (download paper)

• Arvind Bhatt (Crown Hill Community College, Leicester).

9. Why education needs linguistics (2.00-4.00, 18 September 2002, UMIST)

Dick Hudson will lead a discussion of the various contributions that linguistics can make to school-level education, and also of the ways in which linguistics stands to gain from this link.

8. Linguistics in teacher education (10 April 2002, Edge Hill College)

• Chair: Sue Barry
• Speakers:
  • John Keen (University of Manchester School of Education)
  • Kate Ruttle (Ditton Lodge First School, Newmarket)
  • Keith Brown (Centre for Research in English and Applied Linguistics, Cambridge)

7. Why are the British such poor language learners? (5 September 2001, University of Reading)

• Chair: Richard Hudson (UCL & LAGB Education Committee)
• Speakers:
  • Mike Reynolds (University of Sheffield): Sociolinguistic issues (view abstract or download full paper)
  • Rosamond Mitchell (University of Southampton): Pedagogic issues (view abstract)
  • Peter Downes (Nuffield Languages Inquiry): Institutional issues (view abstract)

6. Phonics and accents of English (April 2001, University of Leeds)

• Chair: Sue Barry (University of Manchester & LAGB Education Committee)
• Speakers:
  • John Wells (University College London): A view from phonetics
  • Rhona Stainthorp (Institute of Education): A view from psychology
  • Chris Jolly (Educational publisher, Jolly phonics): A view from phonics
    See also the paper Sounds and letters in English - a resource for phonics teachers and other professionals. 

5. Grammar teaching and the development of writing skills (September 2000, University of Durham)

• Chair: Anthea Fraser Gupta (University Leeds & LAGB Education Committee)
• Speakers:
  • Geoff Barton (Thurston Community College, Suffolk): A view from a secondary school
  • Jim Crinson (Collingwood Primary School, North Shields): A view from a primary school
  • Raphael Salkie (School of Languages, University of Brighton): A view from teacher training 

4. The National Literacy Strategy (April 2000, UCL)

• Chair: Richard Hudson (UCL & LAGB Education Committee)
• Speakers:
  • Paul Higgins (DfEE)
  • Molly Sayer (University of Manchester) 

 3. English language A-levels (September 1999, University of York)

• Speakers:
  • Tony Tinkel (OCR)
  • Michael Hoey (University of Liverpool)

 2. The National Curriculum for English: a place for linguists? (April 1999, The University of Manchester)

• Speakers:
  • Christopher Brumfit (Centre for Language in Education, University of Southampton)
  • Alastair West (the English Team, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority)

1. Language issues in the school curriculum: an overview (September 1998, University of Luton)

Speaker: Dick Hudson (University College London)

The Educational Linguistics Section

This section organised the following discussions at regular LAGB conferences:

• March 1991: Assessing speaking and listening. (panel: Maggie MacLure, Gillian Brown, Joan Swann)
• September 1986: How homogeneous is the grammar of British English? (panel: John Harris, Jim Miller, Mark Sebba)
• April 1986: The synchronic organization of English spelling. (panel: Gillian Brown, Ted Carney, Richard Coates; chair: Mike Stubbs)
• September 1984: Language and sexism
• April 1984: Higher level differences between speech and writing.
• September 1983: Linguistic equality (speakers: Margaret Deuchar, Dick Leith, Jim Milroy)

The discussions are reported in papers in the CLIE Working Papers series, which also list the (many) speakers who contributed to the discussion.

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