How linguistics has influenced schools in EnglandRichard Hudsonlast changed 20 July 2007 Bibliographical informationThis draft was written in March 2007 and is very different from a draft written in December 2006. It was published in 2007 in a new online journal Language and Linguistics Compass (volume 1.4, pp 227-242). AbstractThe article reviews a number of changes in English schools which can be attributed to the influence of linguistics. The most obvious one is the introduction of a course on the English language which occupies about a third of the last two years of secondary school (A-level English Language) and which has proved extremely popular with pupils. Other changes are due to two influential ideas: language awareness (the subject ‘language’ unites English and foreign-language classes and pupils should learn about its general characteristics) and knowledge about language (pupils should learn explicitly about language structure). These two ideas have had a major impact on recent changes in the teaching of both first-language English and foreign languages, both of which have emerged from a ‘grammarless’ period; the teaching of grammar (and other aspects of language structure) is now required by official documents, though it is not always easy for teachers who themselves know little grammar.
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