Premium
How Linguistics Has Influenced Schools in England 1
Author(s) -
Hudson Richard
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
language and linguistics compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.619
H-Index - 44
ISSN - 1749-818X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2007.00015.x
Subject(s) - linguistics , grammar , subject (documents) , foreign language , period (music) , language assessment , language transfer , language education , english language , traditional grammar , comprehension approach , computer science , philosophy , library science , aesthetics
The article reviews a number of changes in English schools that 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 2 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, although it is not always easy for teachers who themselves know little grammar.