ABSTRACT
This paper consists essentially of two separate documents which were produced independently for a seminar in April 1980. The first is a list of claims about language to which most linguists might reasonably be expected to subscribe, and which all have some possible relevance for school teachers. The list contains 83 separate points, covering all aspects of language from its structure to its external relations, and it appears to represent the views of a cross-section of British linguists to whom it (or an earlier version of it) was shown. We hope this list will be useful for those teachers (and teacher-teachers) who would like to know more about the findings of linguistics, but are struck by the ability of linguists to disagree with one another and to change their minds on major issues. The second document is a list of questions which tries to cover the main areas on which teachers might hope to be enlightened by the findings of linguistics. The questions deal with matters such as the superiority (if any) of standard English, the pros and cons of teaching several varieties of English, the nature of West Indian creole, how much the teacher should talk in class, the developmental stages through which the child’s language should be expected to pass, the relations between linguistic forms and their functions, the relations between passive and active language skills, the nature of comprehension, the relations between speech and writing, readability, the need for a metalanguage, and correctness. After each group of questions, a brief paragraph relates them to the list of claims in the first document, and highlights any points of contact between the documents. If these two documents can be taken as representing what teachers want to know, and what linguists can tell them, then it seems clear that linguists do indeed have a lot to say which should interest teachers, even though there are, not unexpectedly, a number of areas where linguistics does not make the major contribution.
