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"Give us a golden age of grammar"

by Dan Clayton and Dick Hudson

last changed: 30 April 2012

 

This page is intended to provide background information relevant to the article in the Times Education Supplement for 5 November 2010 by Dan Clayton and Dick Hudson. (By the way, it wasn't us that wrote the title! Our suggestion was "They likes grammar".)

• A brief summary article in the same issue of TES.
• The Daily Mail article about non-standard grammar in Portsmouth.
  • A comment by Dan.
  • A similar piece in The Independent about English being 'under threat'
    • A comment by Dan.
  • And another piece in The Independent about a speech by Emma Thompson in which she urged children to learn Standard English and to switch into it in official situations.
    • A short comment by Dan.
    • A longer comment by Dan.
• The research on the effects of grammar-teaching on the quality of pupils' writing:
  • the researcher, Debra Myhill
  • the project
• The audit of school-leavers' knowledge of basic grammatical terminology:
  • the project and its findings so far
• The success of A-level English Language:
  • some figures
  • some facts
• A statement about standard English in relation to non-standard varieties agreed by the Committee for Linguistics in Education.
• A website about the role of grammar in secondary English, commissioned by the Secondary Strategy and written by Dick.
• Some websites for teachers about grammar and how to use it in teaching:
  • Debra Myhill's website 'Cybergrammar'
  • A government-funded research project at UCL on using the internet to help with grammar teaching
  • Dick's government-funded site for KS3 English teachers