ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of relevant debates and issues in the teaching of grammar in the UK throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. The Newbolt report addressed the concerns in a comprehensive discussion of all aspects and phases of English teaching from primary schools to universities to teacher training establishments. There are two important points that are worth emphasising here. First, despite some sensible enquiry, the Newbolt report offers no consistent vision for grammar and language teaching in schools. Second, the Newbolt report continued to support the rise of literature as an integral part of the English curriculum. However, with no clear guidelines or direction for grammar and language teaching its role was reduced to secondary status. The Kingman model of language is essentially a Hallidayan one, drawing on the notion of language as a social semiotic, and reconfiguring functional linguistics into an enquiring and enabling model of language pedagogy suitable for the school classroom.
