This is an extract from "Politics, Reading and Knowledge about Language", the author's address to the 1991 annual conference of the National Association for the Teaching of English. It describes the moment in 1988 when Kenneth Baker, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, received the report of the Committee of Inquiry into…

Grammar is "a system of rules governing the conventional arrangement and relationship of words in a sentence" (Brown 1994) which can facilitate the acquisition of a foreign language and is conducive for cultivating comprehensive language competence. Most teachers regard grammar as a frame of English learning. The grammar teaching beliefs…

Traditional grammar instruction is a challenging element of the English curriculum; both students and teachers struggle with the rules and dull nature of grammar. However, understanding grammar is important because students need to understand the language they speak in order to be effective communicators, and teachers provide grammar instruction…

Offers exercises designed to teach college freshmen the characteristics of the participial modifier. The exercises are based on a form of programed teaching that involves a high degree of student involvement, repeatedly presenting students with a stimulus, and asking for a quick, patterned response. (FL)

Claims that grammar instruction does not improve written composition have led some teachers to a confident consensus that they do not have to deal with grammar, yet many still firmly believe in teaching it. Grammar instruction (meaning pedagogical or school grammar rather than scientific or linguistic grammar) can be viewed from the metaphorical…

Condensed from "Today's Education, volume 57 (December 1968), 61-62.

Recommends a return to the traditional approach of studying grammar via sentence diagraming. (SW)

Discusses the enigma of what and how people know apparently trivial information. Presents an experiment, expected answers, and actual responses to grammar questions to determine the degree of common knowledge in professional trivia. Concludes that further research may bring a clearer understanding of the "tradition" of language teaching…

Grammar should be taught for its own sake, not as a means to improving student writing because, in fact, it doesn't.

Examines a very successful popular magazine published between 1899 and 1950 that was devoted to "correct" English usage. Argues that its fundamental aim was to help its readers to know how to conduct themselves in proper (i.e., elite) society. Its longtime editor defended her prescriptive view of English usage and offered many…

Shows that traditional grammar teaching grew out of nineteenth-century beliefs about language learning and the nature of knowledge that are profoundly different from those that direct the language arts curriculum today. Bases the account on approved textbooks, Alberta Department of Education reports, public examinations, and anecdotal records. (EL)

Suggests that the current "return" to grammar will fail unless educators can come to terms with definitions of fundamental grammatical concepts. Considers how educators cannot go back to teaching the traditional, because the traditional no longer exists. Argues that pedagogical grammar currently has too many cooks, all trying to prepare the same…

Written for the educated reader cognizant of ordinary grammatical terminology or able to look it up in a dictionary, this booklet discusses why grammar seems so intractable. The booklet begins by offering two reasons why more diligent instruction in English grammar will not improve students' knowledge: (1) what is presented as English grammar…

The purpose of this experimental study was to determine whether instruction in generative grammar would produce better student writing. As a secondary aspect of the study, evaluation of all students was made for growth in knowledge of grammar apart from writing or other practical applications, whether the students had been instructed in generative…