ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the teaching of sentence-level grammar and confines itself to first-language learning in English and to the construction of meaning in words. It takes a particularly close and critical look at the ways in which education policy in England continues to frame and reframe the way in which the teaching of grammar can assist (or not) writing development. In two previous articles, I have addressed with colleagues the question of whether teaching formal grammar to young learners is an effective or sensible way of proceeding, if the aim is to improve their writing development. The first of these (Andrews et al., 2006) reported a systematic review of research on the effect of grammar teaching on writing development. It was the result of a teambased approach in which 4,691 papers on the topic were identified that had been written between 1900 and 2004, of which 64 were relevant to the particular criteria for that review. Essentially, the results were that formal grammar teaching was not effective in teaching writing development; but that sentence-combining (a more practical, compositional approach that included embedding within as well as combining sentences) looked as though it might be more effective. The review did not look at other kinds of approach to the improvement of writing and the command of sentence structure, but limited itself to these two methods. The second article was a summary evaluation of knowledge about the teaching of sentence grammar (Andrews, 2005), and was more limited in scope. Although published earlier than the first article, it was written later and built on the systematic review (which had been conducted in 2004). It concluded that there was no evidence for the assumption made by policy-makers and some researchers in the United Kingdom that knowledge about sentence grammar helps pupils write more fluently and accurately. Neither of the two articles claimed to be comprehensive in its coverage of the efficacy of grammar teaching, nor on the usefulness of knowledge about grammar – though the systematic review on which the first article was based was the most comprehensive undertaken to date on the efficacy of teaching formal grammar in order to improve writing. Both articles were narrow in their focus in that they were concerned with the grammars of and the development of sentence structure in English, not with large units of language like text and its relation to
context, nor with other languages. These limitations are important to state at the start of the present chapter, which continues to limit its aperture to sentence structure and the development of writing,1 and which aims to provide an update, in 2009, on the state of play in the field at that point.2 It seeks to explore further, rather than return to, the territory already charted in the previous two articles. Despite an extensive search for recently published research on the topic, there is little new evidence to support the teaching of sentence-level grammar to firstlanguage learners of English as a way of enhancing writing ability. By formal “grammar”, I mean specifically descriptions and pedagogic prescriptions about how sentences are constructed. Formal grammar teaching would depend on a metalanguage to account for the ways sentences are constructed; would identify and generate rules to be observed; and would generate a taxonomy. Its key identifying feature would be abstraction from actual sentences. Such abstraction would be reified (often distilled, dumbed down) into rules and/or guidance for the construction of sentences in pedagogic grammars, as they appear in textbooks, guides for teachers and/or students, etc. It appears that the research base for the teaching of formal grammar3 to firstlanguage learners is diminishing. There has been little recent research on the topic, and when such research has appeared, it concludes that sentence-level teaching is ineffective. Most of the recent research in the field, since 2004, has been in second-language learning.4 The stimulus to look again at grammar
teaching in modern foreign-language learning has come also from England’s Key Stage (KS) 3 framework for teaching modern foreign languages.5 There is gradual convergence of interests between English as “mother-tongue” teaching, ESL/EAL/ESOL and modern foreign-language teaching, not only around grammar and how it should be taught (if at all), but also in other aspects of language learning. Such convergence, if it happens, may lead to a reappraisal of the usefulness and applicability of knowledge about grammar in the teaching of writing. The exception to the general picture is two intensely focused editions of English Teaching: Practice and Critique, edited by Locke (2005, 2006a). In completing the present brief survey and update on research on the topic of grammar teaching, I will focus on those articles in the two issues of the journal which address the relationship between grammar teaching (whether conceived as systemic, systemic functional, generative, “part of speech”-based, context-based or any combination of these; or in any other way) and the improvement of writing skills. In doing so, I accept that my own aperture is a narrow one, in its focus on sentence-level grammar’s use in writing development. Clark (2005) usefully sets the debate about grammar teaching within a context in which politics shapes educational policy more than any notion of a coherent, academic approach. She uses Bernstein’s theory of pedagogic discourse (1990) to shed light on the successive curriculum and assessment framings of English and, more specifically, grammar teaching. Myhill (2005a) notes a relative dearth of research on knowledge about grammar for writing – in relation to a wealth of research on reading. In a critique of the EPPI report6 on the teaching of syntax to improve writing (Andrews et al. 2004a), Myhill does not take account of the limitations that were
explicitly acknowledged in the systematic review: that the connection between teaching formal grammar and the development of writing was not theorized; that the report explored instead the assumptions informing practice in policy circles; that pedagogic confidence of the teacher was not addressed because the research that we examined did not address it; and that our attention was on experimental trials because our research question was about effectiveness. What the EPPI reports (there were two, including one on sentence-combining that is not mentioned in the critique) wanted to achieve and did achieve, I would argue, was a ground-clearing exercise in the field. The ground that has been cleared is principally an assumption that the teaching of formal grammar is efficacious in the teaching of writing. I would entirely agree with Myhill that the connection between grammar taught in context and the accuracy and quality of writing is under-researched; as is the significance of teacher knowledge about grammar and its application (tacitly or explicitly) in the classroom. Myhill’s three principles of research into the connection between knowledge about grammar and writing development – that writing should be seen as a communicative act; that linguistic resources are to be seen as meaning-making resources; and that of connectivity – are all good ones. So too are the possibilities for future research, building on Hayes and Flower’s (1980) content, formal and audience schemata and on the need to know more about what teachers know and need to know in order to be excellent teachers of writing. My feeling is that there is still not an understanding at policy level in the United Kingdom that knowledge about grammar at sentence level might best be positioned as a requirement for teachers’ academic and professional knowledge, not as something to teach to young people. In other words, teachers need to know about grammar in order to deploy their knowledge as they see fit in the service of the teaching and learning of more accurate and better-quality writing. This is a different position from that enshrined in Grammar for Writing (DfEE 2000), which assumed that pupils needed to know about language in order to write well.7 There was one further article that I could find, published in the period since the EPPI review and beyond those papers published in English Teaching: Practice and Critique. Wyse (2006) looks at how pupils’ word choices within sentence construction are influenced and finds five features that seem to influence word choice: topic knowledge, interaction with others (teachers, family and peers), tone, text features and audience awareness. He concludes that these text-level influences are stronger than sentence-level approaches, and that more individualized support for young writers is needed to provide contextualized learning. This is an interesting conclusion, because it suggests that text-and word-level
choices are closely connected, but that syntax considerations are not such a strong part of the influence on word-choice when composing. However, Wyse also admits his empirical study is based on a small sample (eight children) and that further research is necessary to begin to build a new foundation for work in this field.
