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The history of English teaching in England

last changed 13 Jan 2012

Introduction

This site is intended to bring together a rather haphazard collection of documents to do with the history of the subject called 'English' in our education system. If you can suggest or offer other documents, please contact me.

Historical surveys

  • Keith Davidson (formerly examination officer for the University of London exam board): " … the subject English" (English, English Studies, English Language, English Literature, Functional English… Keith Davidson reflects on what English is. ) From English, Drama, Media 6, 2006).
  • Richard Hudson and John Walmsley: "The English Patient. English grammar and teaching in the Twentieth Century" (Journal of Linguistics 41:593-622, 2005)

quote from 'The English Patient' relevant to grammatical terminology:

The dominant figure in England at the turn of the twentieth century had been Henry
Sweet (1845-1912). Sweet was essentially a philologist, concerned with the
understanding of texts (hermeneutics) and textual criticism. He offered striking and
original insights into the structure of English, as well as helping to lay the foundations for
the scientific study of language in general, and phonetics in particular. Unlike some of his
contemporaries (and cf. Daunt, below) he believed that the study of language should
begin with one’s own native speech. In the teaching world, Sonnenschein probably
occupied at least as prominent a place in the academic consciousness as Sweet did,
especially as far as the teaching of grammar in schools was concerned. Sonnenschein had
founded the Birmingham Grammatical Society in 1885 with the purpose of promoting
simplicity and uniformity of terminology in the teaching of the ‘school’ languages, and of
encouraging grammatical research among teachers. This work was to develop in two
major directions. The first issued in a series of books covering the most important
languages taught in schools, which were uniform in classification and terminology,
scope, size and type. This series – the ‘Parallel Grammar Series’ (PGS) – covered eight
languages, each with its own printed grammar, and some with supplementary readers as
well.
The second area into which Sonnenschein channelled his energies was the Joint
Committee on Grammatical Terminology (JCGT), - the political arm, it might be said, of
the practical work being done through the PGS. The committee published its
recommendations in 1911 (Anon 1911). There was little danger of them being
overlooked: with seemingly tireless energy Sonnenschein forged links not only with eight
different associations in Britain, who were persuaded to nominate members for the
Committee, but also with like-minded colleagues in the United States, Germany, Austria
and France. However, for all this activity Sonnenschein’s campaign came to little. This
was in part because of the opposition of no less a figure than Otto Jespersen, who took a
different view on both theory and terminology (Walmsley 1989).

For more discussion of the conflict between Sonnenschein and Jespersen, and its consequences, see:

  • Walmsely, John (2011). Terminology reform 1928-68. Paper to Henry Sweet Society. Download here.
  • Walmsley, John (2001). The "Entente Cordiale Grammaticale", 1885-1915. In Colombat, B. & Savelli, M. (eds.), Métalangage et Terminologie Linguistique. Actes du colloque international de Grenoble. Leuven: Peeters. 499-512.
  • Walmsley, John (1989). The Sonnenschein v. Jespersen Controversy. In Fries, U. & Heusser, M. (eds.), Meaning and Beyond. Ernst Leisi zum 70. Geburtstag. Tuebingen: Gunter Narr Verlag. 253-281.

For an example of the opposition to unified terminology, see the criticisms by Nesfield.

Textbooks

Reports

  • Extracts from the Lockwood Report (1964): intro 0 - 1 - 2 - 3; p. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
    • including Randolph Quirk's proposed A-level in English Language: p. 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Exam papers