ABSTRACT
This chapter is about the place of knowledge about language in the secondary English classroom in Scotland, and particularly about the ways in which curricular reform, the changing attitudes of teachers and increased collaboration between schools and universities might allow for a greater and clearer emphasis on knowledge about language in both English and foreign-language teaching. In this chapter, you will be encouraged to think about ways in which collaboration between schools and universities in your own area might be enhanced. The discussion is organized around the following topics. Section 2 is concerned with ongoing changes in the teaching of knowledge about language in Scotland. It explores the various links that are emerging between schools and departments of English Language, Linguistics and Education in the country, and tries to explain why these links are emerging at the present time. This section also discusses existing provision for the teaching of knowledge about language generally and grammar in particular. There is also some discussion in this section of existing curricular arrangements1 and of the guidance from both the education department at the Scottish government (which, prior to the election of the Scottish National Party to form a minority government in Scotland in 2007, was known as the Scottish Executive2) and the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA). In section 3, I consider some of the specifics of grammar teaching: for example, how, when and why specific grammatical topics are addressed, and teachers’ confidence in exploring such topics. You will be encouraged to reflect on your own practice regarding grammar teaching, with some suggestions for possible work on teaching grammar using non-standard dialect data. In the fourth section, issues of multilingualism in the English classroom are explored. These issues are of relevance not only to the long-standing debate about the nature, function and role of Scots in English teaching in Scotland, but also to our understanding of the effect of more recent migration patterns from natives of
other countries within the European Union to Scotland. This is reflected in a recent government consultation document, A Strategy for Scotland’s Languages. The issue of language variety is an important topic relating to knowledge about language in the English classroom in Scotland, not least because of the increasing ethnic diversity of students in Scotland’s schools. Again, you will be encouraged to consider the issue of linguistic diversity in your own classroom, and to reflect on ways in which this diversity may be seen as a resource for work on knowledge about language. In section 5, I briefly discuss some of the ways in which the debate concerning knowledge about language might be moved forward, and consider how university academics might support teachers who are working on knowledge about language, should such support be required. Section 6 is the conclusion. In Trousdale (2006), I discussed some of the particular effects of education policy on the teaching of knowledge about language in Scotland, and of the place of knowledge about language in formal examinations in English. This was in part prompted by recent and ongoing curricular reform across the entire Scottish school system, a project known as A Curriculum for Excellence,3 henceforth ACfE. This project has conceived of the curriculum as a series of groupings of related subjects (for example, Sciences, Technologies, Expressive Arts). The “traditional” subject of school English falls largely4 in the “Languages” group, which provides a wealth of opportunities for work on knowledge about language crosslinguistically. What is particularly encouraging about ACfE, at least as far as one can gather from the information that is publicly available, is the emphasis on the linguistic diversity of Scotland as a whole. A webpage on languages in ACfE states:
Scotland has a rich diversity of language, including the different languages of Scotland and the growing number of community languages such as Urdu, Punjabi and Polish. This diversity offers rich opportunities for learning. Learning other languages enables children and young people to make connections with different people and their cultures and to play a fuller part as global citizens. (Learning and Teaching Scotland, 2009, paragraph 2)
This emphasis on multilingual Scotland – where that multilingualism covers not just Gaelic, Urdu and Polish, but Scots and English too – foregrounds the need
for putting knowledge about language at the centre of the languages strategy.5 This has been emphasized by those working on the Languages component of ACfE, since they stress the importance of students developing a good understanding of how language works. They have also been keen to recognize the value of local indigenous cultures, by highlighting the pleasure and benefits of studying Scottish literature. In other words, some aspects of this important curricular review are encouraging: part of the Languages curriculum is local, but it is not parochial – it recognizes that the diversity of language in the local communities of Scotland is a resource in itself, which can help children become proficient in a range of competencies. There are therefore a number of initiatives linked to government policy (whether specifically concerned with education or not) that foreground the importance of language awareness and language learning that are likely to impact on English teaching in the Scottish secondary system. The material presented here is based on a range of sources, including documentation from the Scottish government and the SQA. I have also included, where relevant, some matters arising from work, discussions and interviews with (and reports from) some teachers of English from state secondary schools in central and southern Scotland. These discussions and interviews were sometimes carried out as part of larger collaborative projects, but some specific questions were asked in order to clarify what seemed to be the critical issues in the teaching of knowledge about language among a very small sample of teachers. Therefore, the views expressed should not be seen as in any way representative of the views of the English teaching profession in Scotland as a whole, nor is there as yet sufficient material to provide detailed quantitative analysis. But the comments do at least provide some insight into some of the problems that particular teachers have faced when working on knowledge about language with their students, and ways in which some of the these problems have been overcome. As noted above, the chapter also provides some discussion of ways in which academics and teachers can collaborate with the aim of promoting a fuller understanding of knowledge about language in the classroom; recent work on this in Scotland has brought about a network of teachers who are keen to do further work on knowledge about language, both at Higher and Advanced Higher (the Scottish national school exams typically taken towards the end of one’s school career), and more generally elsewhere in the curriculum.
