How to improve productivity, using schools and education

Here at Education Research for Corporations, we've applied the productivity model to schools. In this model, pupils are workers and we measure their productivity on the basis of written output. All other outputs are not measurable and are therefore excluded. We find that some children are not producing writing for long sections of the day. We have recommended that in order to produce the next generation of employees, we need to turn this around. From now on, we propose that all children from 5-18 spend at least 90% of the day sitting writing. This will enable them to transition smoothly and efficiently to the workplace.

Why and how do councils and academies sell off school land

Of course academies can't sell off land, say the ministers, it's only on lease to the academies, it's held by the councils...

...this is how it's done, according to someone who has just written on my Facebook feed:

"Our local secondary school (in Surrey) had no choice but to become an academy and sell off playing fields to rebuild the school. The school was falling down around them and no/not enough money coming in from council/government to help them have a school that was habitable for students. Sad it had to come to that."

SPaG - French and German kids do it. Do they?

One of the claims being made by defenders of SPaG is 'French and German children do grammar on their own languages'. This goes uncontested.

So, let's unpack this: what I would like to know is highly specific: 

what kinds of grammar do French and German 7 year olds do? 

What kinds of grammar do French and German 11 year olds do? 

NOT what kinds of grammar do French and German 12 year olds, 15 year olds 18 year olds do?

The core of my question here is whether either France or Germany does 'grammar' beyond naming nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, something on reported and direct speech and something on tenses of verbs. (That was what we 'did' in the 1950s in primary schools.) 

Do French and German schools do more than this, the same as this, less than this? I have seen some French exercise books for primary children and it was full of 'conjugations' of verbs. Our equivalent would be 'bring, brought, brought' for present, simple past, and past participle.)

(Examples of 'fronted adverbials', 'embedded relative clauses' and 'subordinate conjunctions' will be given special recognition.)

Further, I have reason sometimes to read stuff written by French people with no education beyond 16. I'm interested to see that according to French 'rules' on 'agreements' quite often there are 'errors'. This suggests to me that even though the rules on agreements are repeated hundreds of times in many different ways, some people never quite 'get' it, particularly if they're silent as in masculine plural agreements. Perhaps some people have thoughts on that too. It tells me that you can drum and drill over and over again but you never get everybody all the time. This may not mean that you do nothing, but it may indicate that the drumming and drilling may at be fault. Or it may indicate that that's the way written language use is. It's too complicated for everyone to 'get' it all the time.

(you can comment on this on my Facebook or twitter feeds.) 

Formal writing/informal writing. Obvious distinction. But not.

One of the justifications for SPaG and the 'Guidance' on how teachers must get children to 'meet expectations' in their writing is that it teaches children 'formal writing'. We then say there are 'informal ways' to write as in tweets, texts, ads, signs, newspaper headlines and so on. 

All nice and neat: two kinds of writing. 

Ah, if only life and language could be so simple, then we could tidy it all up in the way that politicians and examiners would like. 

One example of the way in which the distinctions between formal and informal writing have been broken down over the last few years is in journalism. Journalists in papers, magazines and on blogs increasingly use what used to be called 'informal' writing in their articles. You'll find one-word sentences, sentences without verbs, slang, colloquialisms without speech marks round them so that they are in the voice of the journalist and so on. So that, is if you like, in the field of 'popular non-fiction', often used for argument, recount, persuasive writing and the like. You could perhaps put it in a new category (that was always an old category anyway!) - 'modern formal'. Incidentally, politicians are often quite fond of it too. 

Another way in which the distinction between formal writing and informal writing is blurred is in fiction. Frequently in fiction, the narrator 'speaks' in informal ways. This is what can make it so immediate and 'good'. It is also amongst the most popular forms of fiction enjoyed by the children doing the SPaG test! And even in the most formally written fiction, the writer may well need to represent speech. So the 'formal writing' of a novel has to include 'informal writing'. It has a powerful and important place in 'good writing'. Get the informal writing wrong, and it's crap writing. So, do children also 'need' to learn how to write informally? After all, it might help them become a journalist, write fiction, or indeed, communicate anywhere in accessible and interesting ways. Apparently not, because 'informal writing' won't win you marks in the writing that will 'meet expectations' nor of course in the SPaG test. Down with informal writing. It's bad. Naughty. 

Meanwhile, as in the example I gave in an earlier post today - the statement from the DfE 'spokesman'  - you can be 'formal', get all the DfE's own form of 'grammar' right, but end up with a clumsy, ambiguous sentence. How mysterious. How can that be?

'Grammar' in the primary school in the 1950s

You can see what kind of 'grammar' questions we had in the 11plus exams in the 1950s here. It was limited, as I have said, mostly to using the simplest terms - noun, verb, adjective, adverb - and, I can see I have left out - the simplest stuff on tense. The questions mostly involved 'filling in the gap' type, so at least you had the tiny context of that sentence to get it right. I'm not saying that this was ideal either, but it was fairly limited in terms of the amount of time we spent doing it and how much emphasis there was on doing it. 

Even so, this was part of the means by which the 1950s system failed at least two-thirds of all children. 

It is quite unfair of Nick Gibb to claim that this is what's being 'brought back'. A much more complex raft of terms and processes are in SPaG and it's one of the main means by which schools and teachers are being judged. In other words, there is much more emphasis being placed on it. 

(examples of terms being required now, not required then for 11 year olds: determiners, subordinate conjunctions, subjunctive, 'progressive' tenses, expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials -  some of which 6 year olds are supposed to 'learn'. 

And there was no nationwide test for 7 year olds.)

Could you pass the 11-plus? Exam papers first used in the 1950s puts your family to the test

Their very name still deeply divides opinion. For some, the Eleven-Plus exams, which determined whether a…

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All sentences have full stops. Not.

All sentences have full stops -
except (often) where children see written language the most: in signs and ads.
SPaG rules not OK.

[Yes, 'full stops' here taken to include ! and ?] !

How bad writing gets to be called 'good writing', thanks to 'Guidance' on 'meeting age expectations'.

From a primary school teacher:

"Sadly, it is not just the SPaG teaching for tests that negatively impacts on children's writing. The 'guidance' on judging whether a child's writing 'meets age expectations' is all about grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting. The need to include all the grammar and punctuation that is taught produces dull, formulaic writing that has no heart. Gone are the 'marks' (read 'tick boxes' now) for composition and effect. One piece of writing can be clearly better than another - it flows, has a genuine 'voice', is a pleasure to read but may be judged 'not at age expected' because no contractions have been used so no evidence of correct apostrophe use for omission. The turgid 'written by numbers' piece however can tick all the boxes. I am sickened. I am a primary teacher."

In SPaGspeak, a command is only a command when SPaG says it is a 'command'

Children are asked in the SPaG to get the right example of a 'command'. The only one allowed is the one that uses the 'imperative' form of a verb - like 'go' as in 'go now', or 'get out' as in 'get out' (!). Easy to practice? Yes. Easy to learn? Fairly.
But is it true? Is it useful? Does it explain language-in-use?
Nope.
Why not?
Because of real language in use.
We can 'command' in various ways in English:
We can say, 'you must' do something now, or 'you have to'. Or even 'I want you to...' do something, if said with sufficient force.
We are also surrounded with signs like 'No smoking' and 'Quiet please' which are also 'commands'. But not SPaG 'commands'.

Even more odd are 'imperatives' which are not commands!
My favourite is the word 'STOP' on the stop button on a bus. It is not telling you to stop. You read it. But you can't 'stop'. It means, 'press this button and a message will go the driver who will, if he or she sees it, stop the bus.' Or it means 'This is the stop button'. Either way it doesn't 'mean' that you who are reading this must stop.

UPDATE: someone has just given me another example taken straight from teachers' and children's daily experience, daily real use of language: when teachers say, 'Sitting quietly' or 'Looking this way'. Yes! It's just the 'present participle' of the verb doing the work, the '-ing word'.
So teachers are using this as a command but it's not a 'command' command. It's only a command.
Love it.

The DfE teaches us how to write bad sentences

Statement by 'Department of Education spokesman':

“Rather than simply opposing our reforms, which have already seen 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, the NUT would do teachers and pupils a much greater service by engaging constructively with them.”

(I'll leave the politics of this to others, as I'm on my SPaG rage trip at the moment)

Look at the last word in this sentence: 'them'.

It's a 'pronoun' because it stands for a 'noun'. 'Grammar' is supposed to teach us that when you use a pronoun, you make clear which noun it refers to. There is no rule on this. It can be the 'subject' of the main verb, the subject of a verb in a subordinate clause, or the 'object' of these verbs or even a noun in the phrase that comes nearest to the pronoun.

Ask yourself what possibilities are there for this 'them'?

In purely 'structural' terms - the kind of grammar adopted by SPaG, there is only one real contender - the phrase 'teachers and pupils', but that is NOT what the 'spokesman' meant. He meant 'reforms' which is way back in the sentence, even earlier than 'schools' and 'children'.

This shows us that we 'get' meaning from context, even when sentences don't follow the logic of 'structure'.

On the other hand, the DfE spokesman produced a fairly ambiguous sentence especially for those who haven't followed the context of the argument. To that extent it's a 'bad' sentence. And it's been produced by someone from the DfE.

Nick Gibb will sort it.

Can you sort it by teaching more of that kind of 'grammar'? Nope. You can only sort it by listening to the rhythm of the sentence and asking yourself, have I made myself clear? Is there anything in this sentence that people might not 'get'? You learn this by sharing these sentences with 'audiences' i.e. readers and listeners and NOT by doing more exercises and tests. 

For parents and teachers wanting to oppose the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests.

Nick Gibb has been on talking about how they've brought grammar back into schools. Please feel free to use any or all of the below as part of any campaign to oppose the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests. 

1. Grammar was hardly taught in state primary schools in the 1950s. it was saved till secondary schools and then it was mostly in grammar schools,and top stream in secondary modern schools i.e. for about one third of all pupils, max.The most that was taught in primary schools, when I was at school, was noun, verb, adjective, adverb - not even subject, verb, object. I publicly call on him to show otherwise, by referring to the 11plus exams of the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s.
2. The grammar that was taught in grammar schools in the 1950s and early 60s was discontinued because after 25 years of O-level exams no evidence was found that teaching that kind of grammar was helping school students to write better. The evidence for this was in the O-level exam results themselves where no correlations were found between the 'grammar question' and the 'composition' question.
3. The grammar that Nick Gibb et al have introduced into schools is not there because anyone can or has shown that it improves children's writing. All it can ever show is that pupils incorporate elements of the grammar into their writing in formulaic, mechanical ways e.g. by random and artificial insertion of 'fronted adverbials', 'embedded relative clauses' and 'expanded noun phrases'.
4. The grammar they have introduced was only introduced because the Bew Report of 2011 said that it produced right/wrong answers in test situations. This is not true. It doesn't, as evidenced by the number of questions that produce several possible answers.
5. This kind of grammar is not directly related to how children and adults are using words and language as a whole. A good deal of it is made up of artificial sentences which children have to use to spot parts of speech. There is an alternative to this. It involves observing real language in use, how writers and speakers are using it to communicate and express themselves. It then can involve a combination of imitation, adaptation, invention and a limited amount of naming of parts.
6. Several of the categories in this government-directed grammar are heavily disputed by grammarians. It's dishonest to pretend to children and teachers that they are not. It is also dishonest to pretend to children, parents and teachers that there are people who produce a fault-free way of speaking and writing. We all make errors and slips. We vary from each other in how we speak and write. That is because language is one kind of human behaviour so there is no reason to expect that it will be any more uniform than our clothes or our ways of dancing.
7. Our children are being put under stress to get difficult, abstract concepts learned off for these tests. It is very doubtful that many of them will understand the concepts being taught. This is evidenced by the fact that people who write the test papers and the homework booklets themselves don't appear to understand all the concepts involved. Part of the problem here is that the concepts themselves are nowhere near as watertight as it is claimed. `Language is far from suitable as a site for coming up with yes/no, right/wrong categories. Most linguists know this.

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‘We’ll ensure discredited ideas unsupported by firm evidence are not promoted to new teachers.’

This is circulating as a 'comment by a young teacher':

'A small sentence in the White Paper shows exactly how the Government intends to control the content of teacher training. It says:

‘We’ll ensure discredited ideas unsupported by firm evidence are not promoted to new teachers.’

It sounds reasonable. After all, who would want teachers told pseudoscience such as Brain Gym? But I don’t think that’s what ministers have in mind. The ‘discredited ideas’ will be theories which ministers don’t like. But theories are ideas to be investigated, discussed, weighed in the balance. But they can’t necessarily be proved by applying the scientific method because they’re theories. Rousseau, Dewey, Montessori, Steiner, Hahn, Arnold, Freire, Bloom, Piaget, Neill, Holt and others all developed different theories. It is part of the intellectual development of teachers to be introduced to these different ideas.
But this White Paper proposes banning discussion of any theory which a minister decides is ‘discredited’ orthodoxy.
Silencing of such discussion is dangerous.'

-------

Needless to say, I find this sinister and farcical at the same time: as if everything in education is backed by 'evidence'. Consider 'subject boundaries'. Is there 'evidence' that there is a boundary between geography and history? Is there evidence that it's a good idea for secondary students to move from room to room during a school day? Is there evidence that it's a good idea to have or not to have a way of dividing a secondary school up vertically for sport, or any other activities? No these are just 'traditions' or 'constructs' that English schools do.

Then, was there evidence that primary children needed the spelling, punctuation and grammar test? None given. It was justified because supposedly those topics give 'right and wrong' answers. They don't.
Do Year 3 children 'need' the Stone Age? Do primary school children need history to be cut off at 1066? Is there evidence for that?

Is there evidence that we should have religious schools?

We could all go on with many examples.

O yes it is. Oh no they're not. Oh yes it is. Oh no they're not, says 'Englicious'.

Hysterical: someone has told me that they've spent £3.50 to find out what the answer to my son's homework is. It's 'until'. So it's now turned into a perfect example of why we can't let these people loose on our language(s). The Prof at UCL has given his verdict that it was both 'when' and 'until' and the test-setters were wrong. The test-setters say that it's only 'until'. 

What are we supposed to do with all this? 

It's just rubbish being peddled as 'truth'.

Englicious says that both 3 and 4 are correct! - and a lot more besides.

Professor Bas Aarts of Englicious has responded to my criticisms of SPaG here: 

https://grammarianism.wordpress.com/2016/03/26/grammar-in-schools-some-qas-and-a-plea/

For what Bas makes of my son's homework (see my previous post) see my number 10, below. It's the final judgement on it. Shorthand - the homework was useless and wrong. 

Here are the rest of my points: 

1. He spends some time trying to point out that he and his team and his website are independent and then points out how much he, his team and his website are not independent. Either he or others from the team advise the government on parts of this stuff, or they don’t. All I ever said is that they do. Bas seems to agree with this, whilst denying it. I have no idea why he would want to co-operate with this charade or deny that he has! 
2. He tells us that his ‘aim is for kids to enjoy learning about the language they use every day’. It’s an honorable aim. However, one thing SPaG most certainly is not, is about ‘the language they use ever day’! SPaG is fundamentally a supposed method to teach children how to write standard English. In fact, children see, hear and imitate many other models of written English and they all speak in various forms of ‘spoken English’ which operate with many conventions not covered by SPaG. One simple example: ‘Where you going?’ ‘Out’. There is no part of SPaG that ‘teaches’ what is going on in this interchange. So I have no idea why Bas concocts the fantasy that SPaG is about ‘the language they use every day’. 
3. Then he says his aim is for kids to use it ‘more effectively both in their formal and creative writing’. On the formal front, I agree that it’s possible that children learn how to construct a rather stiff, formal prose using the directions that are now rife in primary schools: use ‘expanded noun phrases’, ‘fronted adverbials’ and ‘embedded relative clauses’ to make your writing ‘more interesting’. I see the result of these kinds of directives every week, whether that’s from my own child’s writing or in schools that I visit. I see weird artificial sentences, ‘fronted’ with phrases and clauses that would be better placed later in the sentence or in a separate sentence,  crammed full of redundant adjectives, and with the flow interrupted by unnecessary relative clauses. This then gets marks as ‘good writing’. No one who actually writes for children (or adults) is consulted on this matter. What is happening is that a new orthodoxy is emerging which says that such sentences are ‘good’. Any writer or experienced leader of creative writing workshops knows that a good deal of this stuff has to be weeded out in writing for effect, suspense, tension, humour and interest. The claim that the way to help ‘creative writing’ is via this kind of grammar at this age of child is laughable. Those of us who have spent decades helping children write poems and stories have hundreds of ‘tricks’ up our sleeves to help them through a combination of imitation, adaptation, invention, structures, themes and the like. Going via the formal, prescribed structures of SPaG prevents us and children from finding good ways to write. If the aim is ‘write by numbers’ and ‘formulae’, then go ahead, SPaG will do the job. 
4. Bas has a few words about the exclamation marks furore - mostly apologetic. Good. It’s a mess because what grammarians do is use words like ‘exclamation’ and ‘command’ - which have everyday meanings - and seek to apply them in courses and tests with specific ones. So, we exclaim all over the place in many different ways. For the purposes of the test, there are only two valid exclamation sentences. For humanity at large, this is purposeless nonsense. It is, as I keep saying, disconnected from meaning and purpose. It is ‘abstract’  and ‘self-serving’ - that’s to say it just refers to its own systems. A structure of writing is invented as ‘ideal’ like ‘what a nice day I am having!’ and that then IS a ‘true’ exclamation. Does this make sense? No. Is this a useful way to describe how language is actually used? No. At least Bas can see that it’s fairly useless. Too late, pal. The government have got hold of it. It serves their purpose to have right/wrong answers - even though the topic itself doesn’t have right/wrong answers. Job done. Crap grammar. Crap education. Crap test. 
5. Bas says that the tests are devised to test the curriculum. No, Bas, no. The tests are devised to test teachers. That is their only purpose. I suggest that he goes back, looks at the government’s own report which explained why these tests were introduced, the Bew Report 2011. The context was that the SATs had been boycotted. The government had no tests which produced right/wrong answers which they could use to test schools on the input-output model of education, in the field of ‘English’ or ‘literacy’. So they decided that spelling, punctuation and grammar delivered this kind of reliability. At this point, the honest thing that linguists could have done is shout from the house tops that spelling, punctuation and grammar do not deliver right/wrong answers. Thankfully for all of us, language is much more diverse and various than this. Applied linguists might then have pointed out all sorts of interesting things that a study of language-in-use can show us. (I have in front of me, one such document produced by the government’s own ‘Schools Council’ in the early 1970s with the help of Bas Aarts’s predecessor at University College, the great M.A.K.Halliday. It is a flexible 110-unit course in how to investigate language in use for 11-18 year olds. You see, Bas, other and better models for schools have existed. It’s politics that drives them out. More on that another day, perhaps.)
6. Bas then points out that yes, he agrees with me that the ‘grammar’ used in SPaG is only one model of grammar but that, he says, is to reduce ‘confusion’. Oh really? Earlier in the blog post, he has already conceded that there is confusion over exclamation marks - that will continue, I can assure him. Look at the 2016 sample test paper for the SPaG test and consider the question on ‘commands’. It deliberately and nastily lays a trap for children by putting as one of the multiple choices a ‘You must..’ sentence. Semantically, this is a ‘command’. Children would of course understand that someone saying ‘You must...’ do something is an order or a command. But of course, the ‘command’ in SPaG is more specific than that. It can only be one that uses the ‘imperative’ form of the verb. The farce here is that we also use the imperative in ways that are not ‘commands’! ‘Be a good boy and get me my slippers’ shows the ‘imperative’ in two functions in one sentence! According to useless Latinate grammar they are the ‘same’. The ‘be’ in the first clause is the ‘same’ as the ‘get’ as the second. Functionally and semantically they are different. Any decent ‘grammar’ would and should take this on board. Not only is this ‘confusing’ if you dish out SPaG type grammar, it encourages examiners to produce tricksy, nasty questions. (By the way, what Bas doesn’t seem to realise is that exams are not accurate, single-formed ways of ‘testing’. One multiple choice question is not the same as another on account of what is known as the ‘plausibility of the distractor’. That’s to say, if I ask you to select one ‘command’ from four sentences, I could make three of the possibilities absolutely nothing like commands eg 1. Four raspberries sitting on my plate. 2. I like Geography. 3. Have you got my pencil? 4. Stand up straight when I’m talking to you!  The ‘distractors’ are not ‘plausible’. Fill the three up with command-sounding sentences and it’s no so easy. Confusing? You bet.)
7. Bas then tries the old analogy game. He suggests that a simplified linguistics is OK just as simplified history or literary criticism is OK. Well, yes, history in primary schools has been forcibly simplified because it now ends at 1066. In fact, a good deal of ‘history’ is hardly recognisable as history. It’s just old stuff. As for literary criticism, many schools do very complex, ambivalent, nuanced literary critical work with children, discussing motive, plot, alternative ways of writing, genre and so on. However, analogous to SPaG, the SATs have until now introduced a useless reductive line of questioning which reduces literature to extracts in which pupils’ responses have been reduced to ‘retrieval’ and ‘inference’ and excluded ‘intepretation’. Best to steer clear of analogies, Bas. 
8. More seriously, Bas doesn’t address my point about this grammar not being ‘the’ grammar. My point is that it doesn’t deal with meaning, purpose and function. It treats language as if it is like a self-assembly furniture pack, where all you have to do is use the directions, screws and panels in the ‘right’ way. The ‘terms’ are then simply ways of describing how one panel fits on to another panel. But language is part of our human interaction, our behaviour. It’s the means by which we are social. Every single part of it, words, structures, sounds are in place for that purpose. The grammars we need are ones that are related to meaning, structure and purpose. I have given the example of the ‘possessive’ as at least including a sense of why we have a word like ‘my’ , and we can compare that to a term like ‘determiner’ that is purely a reference to the instructions of the self-assembly model of language. Bas doesn’t engage with this criticism.
9. Bas reminds me that I mentioned ‘metaphors’. Yes, there are useless, formulaic ways of teaching ‘metaphors’, so I’m not in favour of teaching metaphors simply because they exist. I’m in favour of teaching metaphors in observational, practical ways: observe, imitate, adapt, invent. However, as my mother would say - half in Yiddish - ‘Remember Michael, even the best ideas can be turned to ‘dreck’’. (dreck = poo). The point is that teaching metaphor as a rule or a formula or a prescription is a net loss (or ‘dreck’). The ultimate test of any writing is not that it fits a rule or formula but whether others find it interesting. 
10. I dearly, dearly love the fact that Bas has found that my son’s holiday homework question is useless. Thousands of children and parents are being humiliated by this even as you are reading this. The fact that this particular question (and all the other ambiguous, tricksy questions, all the other questions that have different possible answers) appears, seems mysteriously to have absolutely nothing to do with Bas even though earlier he has conceded that he is part of the system. Sorry, Bas but you were bought in for this project. The fact that it has given rise to thousands of worksheets, revision booklets, written by people (er...adults, Bas) who have misunderstood or who are confused by a model of grammar that primary school children are supposed to be able to cope with, is part and parcel of the whole business. People responsible for this stuff can’t withdraw from the necessary and inevitable consequences of the policy. These booklets, my son’s useless question, his humiliation and bother are part of the policy. 
11. I have been through the glossary several times. Much of it is so abbreviated that it is impossible to use it as a course. For people new to these terms (or their equivalents) there is no easy way through it. We are also at an absurd moment in the history of this - perhaps it’s a constant part of it - where terms that were essential yesterday, are junked today. Teachers’ pain and confusion needs more than being acknowledged. They have spent the last five years or so being told that it is vital and necessary to teach ‘connectives’ or ‘time connectives’. Suddenly, along comes a ‘glossary’ that tells them that ‘connectives’ have been abolished. Any of us are entitled to ask, therefore, what is the validity of any of these terms? You know better than me, Bas, the category of ‘subordinate conjunction’ is much disputed. The professor of linguistics at Edinburgh University, Geoff Pullum, no less, denies that it exists! As you concede, the word ‘subjunctive’ to describe some not very common constructions we have in English is not accurate or useful. You were overruled by a politician. If I was (you’ll note that I didn’t write ‘were’) in your shoes, I would have walked at that point.  Your work, your principles have been traduced. Why are you having anything to do with these people who can’t even trust the ‘trusties’ they’ve agreed to work with? Would a scientist accept that Nicky Morgan overruled them on electrons? 
12. You plead with me to work with Englicious. As you know, I help make over 20 radio programmes a year about language for BBC Radio 4. We now have a resident linguist, Laura Wright, from the University of Cambridge in every programme. We investigate language and popularise linguistics. This is available on iPlayer and on podcast as well as ‘off air’ ie to listen to as it goes out. This means that teachers, parents and people of all ages can engage with what linguistics can do when it’s away from the pressures of governments and linguists who are doing what politicians tell them to. I’m told that teachers of A-level English Language use it quite a lot.  I also spend a huge amount of my time visiting schools, doing my poetry performances and running poetry workshops. These ‘investigate’ language all the time. My poems and workshops isolate aspects of language, ask questions about usage, register, structure, vocabulary, bilingualism, and more. In the workshops, I raise questions of how we can ‘build’ phrases, sequences. I raise questions about how words, phrases and sequences can help create effects. I have a book coming out on writing poetry which investigates poetic language and gives suggestions on how anyone can do the same. I have written a good deal of it on my blog where it is available free of charge, open access. I also run workshops on this for teachers. So, I find it slightly strange that you are asking me to join you! I think you would do much better by joining me and the likes of me, who teach ‘language in literature’ in these different ways, instead of dancing to the government’s tune of ‘right/wrong’ answers, prescriptive language use, and the humiliation of SPaG testing. 

People with linguistics degrees can't answer my son's SPaG homework. Can you?

Yesterday, I put up a question that was in my son's Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar homework for the holiday. It's a photocopy of what looks like a previous or 'mock' test. For those who are not part of this nightmare, I'll remind you it's a test for Year 6 pupils who are 11 years old or nearly 11 years old.

By the way, you'll see that people below, like me, don't know the answer. Or, if we come up with an answer, we can also justify why there are two answers - according to the descriptions given in the government's own 'glossary' on the 'gov.uk' site. 

I am still waiting for someone to tell me the answer, and to tell me the reason why it is the only answer and, therefore, why the others are 'wrong', as I have to help my son with his homework this easter.

(In terms of my qualifications to talk about 'language', as people ask: 

I studied Latin, French and German to 'O'-level (i.e. GCSE equivalent). Did loads of 'grammar' for O-level English. Did A-level French and English. Did a degree in English Literature and Language (which included Old English and Middle English). Because my father did a post-doc linguistics course with M.A.K. Halliday, he shared a lot of what he was studying with me in our many, many chats about language. I've also on many occasions set myself linguistics homework so I've read  one of David Crystal's grammar books, read an intro to Halliday's work, read his own 'introduction', read and used many books on grammar, applied linguistics, language in education etc over the last 50 years; regularly interview linguists on 'Word of Mouth' on BBC Radio 4 (1998-now), correspond regularly with linguists who take up issues with me over what I've written - either in agreement or not, including two of the linguists who are behind this system of classification for SPaG. I also have an MA and a Ph.D in children's literature which on occasions called on me to investigate language at the level of 'narratology' and 'intertextuality' - which in spite of these being a bit 'abstruse' in the way of subjects, would in fact be much more useful for teachers to know more about in terms of helping children write.

I have only done this c.v because some people get aggressive online and assume that I'm just the geezer who writes funny poems, so how could I possibly have the right to question what the government says is 'grammar'. Apologies if it sounds like showing off.)

Here is the question again:



'Tick the sentence where the highlighted word is used as a subordinating conjunction.
Tick one.
He was at school BEFORE you.
She did her homework UNTIL dinnertime.
Do not undo your seatbelt, UNTIL the car has stopped.
WHEN the sun is out, we will go outside.'



You can read my comments on this in my previous blog.

My view is that according to the old Latinate grammar that I was taught, there is no difference between the 3rd and 4th example. The only difference is where 'until' in the 3rd and 'when' in the 4th appear in the sentences given. This shouldn't make a difference when it comes to 'subordinating'. My view in summary is that:

a) the category 'subordinating conjunction' is disputed by linguists - see earlier blog by Geoff Pullum, professor of linguistics, Edinburgh University. (Thanks, Geoff.) 

b) a 'grammar' that talks about language in this way is not much use for anything apart from coming up with self-serving, 'internal' rules that don't refer sufficiently to use, meaning and purpose - that's why some grammarians argue about it and change the terms. And it's not 'the' or 'the only' 'grammar'. It's one version of 'grammar'.  

c) knowing such things is useless for helping young children write well 

d) teachers find this stuff confusing to teach 

e) it's only being imposed on children so that central government has as assessment system to assess schools with. 

f) what we need to ask is 'what kind of knowledge about language do we need to teach that will help children write well?'


I put all this up on Facebook and here are some of the comments that people put up. Please note that some of the people have a degree in linguistics and/or a degree in English Literature and Language (like me), some taught in secondary schools for many, many years, some are teaching Year 6.


COMMENTS by people on Facebook:


1. I have a degree, and I taught English in one shape or another from 1974 to 2015. I am afraid that is my only qualification. To me, they are all conjunctions, as 'were' and 'arrived' are understood, respectively in 1 and 2. The comma in 3 is unnecessary. There seems little difference to me between the use of until in 2 and 3, even if 2 is about a passage of time, whereas 3 implies UNLESS as well as until. All four imply time that has passed or is to pass. I like analysis like this, but the idea that there is an absolute and correct classification is very silly. It is useful to consider shades of meaning, but the tick-box mentality is daft.


2. ME: I think they used to say that the first two were 'prepositions' because they introduce 'phrases'. I think M.A.K. Halliday did away with the distinction and called everything a 'clause'. (When I cite the past, I don't cite it as the truth but merely that it was a staging post where once it was the truth and now we're in a different 'truth' that isn't truer. Just more now. Interesting also that you started going into semantics in order to work out what classification of 'grammar' it should have. That's the hoax of this kind of grammar i.e. that it's purely 'structural'. But you can't work out the 'structure' unless you 'get' the meaning! It ain't so pure after all.

3. I was wondering whether "until" was a coordinating conjunction ( not a subordinating one) because the clauses on either side appear to be of equal importance. But this, as you say, is primarily a semantic consideration. I'm more persuaded by Laura's suggestion below that 3 is the answer because "until" is in the position of the "joining word". Maybe we should have grammar tests where students compete to give the most abstruse definition, like mediaeval scholars debating why Adam did or didn't have a navel.


4. 3 and 4 could both be argued for. It's a kind of theology which might amuse ethereal linguists but is utterly inappropriate as a test at school level.


5. ME: I've been asked if this 'matters'. I have answered: "In the life of one very nice boy I know very well, and love dearly, it matters an enormous amount. I wish it didn't. It makes me angry that it matters, particularly as it seems to me like junk knowledge. Useless, irrelevant, sloppy, pointless, unrigorous, illogical knowledge.”


6. It's not fair, I'm teaching this to a year 6 class on a daily basis. Trying to explain passive voice and subjunctive form and the difference between phrases and clauses to a group of children who don't really need to know or want to know, just to satisfy the ridiculous demands of a group of idiots who have never been in a school. They're learning things that my 17 year old daughter didn't even come across in high school. The kids are stressed, the staff are stressed and it's going to be the same again next year when they change it all AGAIN. They're kids, not pawns to be used in some kind of political game.


7. I'm treating this as a puzzle and have been agonising for 20 mins ... In a test situation I would discard 1 & 2 because as you said they start a phrase not a clause (no verb). No 3 I would say is a compound sentence as 'until' joins 2 main clauses & therefore I would pick no 4... You could say that without "when" they are both main clauses too in 4, but because it is 'fronted' ( to use another of your favourites) I think it counts as subordinate... I have a degree in linguistics... That took me a long time... And I am far from being certain it's the right answer! It's just wrong to expect chn to do this.


8. I think it's the third one. In the 4th, 'we will go outside' seems to be the subordinated phrase, as it depends on the sun being out!

I have grappled with this, and other parts of the new grammar, as a Year 3 teacher.

I did a languages degree (French and Danish) with a good helping of linguistics, and Old Norse- a heavily declined language, as well as 4 Years of Latin at school. And worked in Greece for a while. English grammar should be fairly transparent to me!


9. Aside from number 4 being 'fronted', I can't see a structural difference between 3 and 4. Do not undo your seatbelt until the car has stopped / We will undo our seatbelts when the car has stopped / We will go outside when the sun is out / Do not go outside until the sun is out... all seem pretty similar to me. Would love to know the answer. That pesky comma before until is making me itchy.

Holiday SPaG test rehearsal craziness...over to you.

Hello it's Easter Holidays so it's SPaG and Maths test rehearsal time! Loads and loads of practice papers. Lovely. Who wants to have a holiday for goodness sake?

Anyway, here's your starter:

'Tick the sentence where the highlighted word is used as a subordinating conjunction.

Tick one.

He was at school BEFORE you. 

She did her homework UNTIL dinnertime.

Do not undo your seatbelt, UNTIL the car has stopped.

WHEN the sun is out, we will go outside.'

------------

Let's leave to one side the fact that some grammarians are absolutely certain that there's no difference between subordinating conjunctions and prepositions - in this case. So for some grammarians 'before' here is a preposition and always a preposition and one of them denied there is even a thing called a 'subordinating conjunction'. So there . I posted up an angry post by someone called Geoff Pullum  all about this. (I don't care either way, but I'm just pointing out there is no final judgement on the matter.)

Now, when I was at school, I was told that you had a main clause and you could have a subordinate clause and subordinate clauses began with a conjunction. We named the subordinate clauses e.g. a 'subordinate clause of time'. So, 'when' clauses along with 'since clauses' and 'until clauses' were 'adverbial clauses of time'. That's how we learned it.

So according to that 'grammar' (which in all truth is not better or worse than the present stuff) wouldn't both example 3 and 4 be subordinate clauses of time, both headed by subordinating conjunctions? Presumably not. So which one of them is right???? 

I have no idea. 

More importantly, I can't think of any possible reason why a distinction can or should be made between the usage of 'until' and 'when' according to any system of classification that seems useful. Yes, I can see that talking about how we indicate time in languages is useful and we have many 'time' words that help us do that. Why do we want to indicate time? Because we live in past, present and future in all sorts of interesting ways. We have many options to indicate this...let's explore it...'until' seems to indicate something coming after, 'when' seems to be indicate (here in this example) something that comes before something else....

Anyway, what is the 'right' answer, according to this test?

(but, also - how is any teacher supposed to teach this so it makes sense? how is any child supposed to remember it? how is any parent supposed to know how to help a child to do it? I have studied French, Latin and German, I did a degree in English language and lit., an MA and a Ph.D and this particular distinction between these kinds of sentences and words absolutely escapes me - according to their useless classification system.)

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Voice from inside an academy

"I have recently left my job working in an academy as I could no longer cope with the way students are treated. From entering the building every aspect of being a teenager is drained from them. Their human rights are ignored, their choice of which subjects they have an interested in is limited and if they express an interest in a practical career they are made to feel like a second class citizen.

All academies want is students that they can brainwash into fitting the A* - C category in academic subjects - this results in better figures for the academy. Students are pressured to chose the subjects the academy want them to do with no concern as regards what the student wishes to chose as a career. This results in students not being able to get the right results to go to college or university to study a career choice of their own - but as long as the academy looks good they do not care.

Academies have so many principals, regional CEO's, assistant principals etc etc all on huge wages that there is more Chiefs than Indians - all these wages are taking away the funds from the schools and the students. In the academy chains funds are "moved" around as they see fit which has resulted in detriment to one school that is out of favour to the benefit of a school ( in a completely different county) getting a cash sum to their benefit. 

The governors in each academy are puppets for show, the main governing body of the academy chain over rules everything to the benefit of the fat cats sat at the top counting their wages and expenses. 

I know all the above after working within an academy, and being a governor, for over 6 years. I am caught in a situation of being sued due to a contract clause if I speak out but i am distraught at the thought of all schools and the countries future youngsters going through what I have seen and know goes on in academies.

I am sorry to rattle on but if there is anyway I can assist or advice you could give I would appreciate it.

Obviously I need to stay anonymous as I cannot afford to be taken to court due to being the only bread winner in my family."

[received today] 

Gibb on academies this morning. It's nonsense.

Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister was on BBC Radio 4 Today this morning.

The new line he repeated several times is that 'we can't have two systems of education' in one country. He mean we can't have the local authority system running alongside the academy system.

1. Cynics might say that the reason why 'we' can't is that it's frequently uncomfortable for him and the Tories that local authority schools are doing fine, or even doing better than academies.

But there's another bit of nonsense here: English education has long been one of several systems or even many systems which separate and segregate children and parents and teachers: obviously there's the private and public division, with private schools being left out of this whole debate anyway. Then there is the religious, non-religious divide - and religious schools are also divided between 'voluntary controlled' and 'voluntary aided'. There are old Foundation schools where the land and school is held by the Foundation Trust and not by the local authority. Then again in counties like Kent there are 'grammar schools' i.e. selective schools, and the other 'high' schools which are to all intents and purposes, 'secondary modern schools'.

2. Another of Gibb's myths was the one about how academy chains free heads up to co-operate with each other. Headteachers and schools across local authorities have been co-operating for decades. Some of the best work on co-operation has happened this way - Tim Brighouse's work is one of many examples. The Language in the National Curriculum project was another (£20 million invested then thrown away because Tories didn't like the 'autonomy' given to teachers!)

3. Even so, the phrase 'local authority bureaucracy' much repeated is a nonsense too. Yes, LA's have people who run education. These have in the past included experienced teacher advisers who have helped schools. But this abolishing bureaucracy is typical populist government talk. What do we think that the appointment of tiers of management and supervision coming from the new Regional Commissioners and the people sitting in the academy chain HQs is all about? Are they not bureaucrats?

4. Finally, the key buzzword is 'autonomy'. The curriculum is ruled by the exam and test system. It is a form of micro-management that extends way beyond what happens on test day. Any parent, child and teacher will tell us how each centrally run, high stakes test has a 'tailback' into teaching and curriculum (i.e. 'lessons') that stretches back at least a year, usually two years. This means that education is becoming more and more about preparation for the test or exam coming up in two years' or one year's or one month's time. And part of that preparation is doing mock questions, mock tests that fit the exact model of the test questions in the final high stakes test.

Remember, the man talking about 'autonomy' this morning sent a letter to the Times Educational Supplement' 'clarifying' the use of exclamation marks. When I joke that he is the Minister for Exclamation Marks, I'm only half-kidding. This is central control as never before. And he talks about 'autonomy'.

5. (It should also be noted that this morning he seems to imagine that all headteachers are men. When we say that these Tories are stuck in some strange parallel universe made up of nannies, private schools, laughing at people who write to Jeremy Corbyn, ex-members of the Bullingdon Club, talking about people as a 'bunch of migrants'...it is staggering to hear them confirming the narrow, secluded culture they grew up in, on a mass media outlet like radio. And Gibb thinks he suffers from being the oik  amongst the grandees, always going on about how deprived he was of a full education....but most of his education was private so heaven knows why he blames local authorities for his own miseries....but that's another matter. Well, it would be, if these people - Gove was another - who use the perceived greatness or crapness of their own education as a rationale for how education should be run now.)

With great hopes, Fronted Adverbial Academy is set up.

Back from her recent successes on TV and radio, Nicky Morgan was glad to be at her desk approving the latest academy conversion. With her eyes fixed on the task ahead, she has overseen the setting up of the Fronted Adverbial Academy in London. As expected, it will have a fronted adverbial ethos. In line with government recommendations, all school bulletins, school rules and teaching will have fronted adverbials. For these reasons, the school is expected to excel at tests on fronted adverbials. In line with government guidelines on fronted adverbials, Fronted Adverbial Academy pupils are certain of high standards in writing.With an exciting future ahead, Fronted Adverbial Academy will have an exciting future ahead.

Academies, Nick Gibb, Nicky Morgan, George Osborne, exclamation marks,

Ruth Moleskin has advised George Osborne to employ her to advise schools on their academy conversions using Moleskin Convert Packs.

At Trident Academy we have tasked the students with how best to use nuclear warheads.


Given Adele's popularity with young children, she's been asked by Nick Gibb to change her name to A Dell.


At the Moleskin Business Academy, we've dropped the words 'pupil' and 'student'. They're 'employees' working to sell the academy product.

As a model for forcing academy conversion, George Osborne is looking at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.


Nick Gibb asked me to improve my writing with embedded relative clauses:'We're going on the bear hunt that is fun,we're going to catch...'

Academies to have compulsory expanded noun phrases in their names eg The Excellent, Well-built,Gove-inspired, Happy Moleskin Academy

In this year's SPaG test there's a question:is 'academy' in 'academy conversion' an adjective, part of a compound, or daylight robbery?

Ruth Moleskin has advised Nick Gibb to change his name to Nick Gib to be more phonically regular.

A school that tries to refuse to be converted into an academy will be arrested.

Nick Gibb says as the word 'academy' is not consonant,vowel,consonant, academies should call themselves 'Cads'. 

Ruth Moleskin to start up a new academy chain and advise govt which schools her chain will take over.

Nick Gibb says that nursery school nativity plays should only use phonically regular words. Joseph = Jed. Mary = Meg.

Osborne has told Nicky Morgan to do a report on forced academy conversion of police dog training centres.

Nick Gibb says that fronted adverbial awareness should be taught in maternity awards to newborns.

Haribo sweets considering becoming an academy chain sponsor. Good for sales.

Nicky Morgan seen walking round parliament buildings cursing Osborne for dumping the forced academy conversions on her desk with no warning.

DfE says errors in their mailouts about errors caused by Labour.

Nicky Morgan says academy chains will take over underperforming exclamation marks.

1938, 2016 - conferences and refugees

In 1938,
nations got together
to decide
they couldn't take in refugees.
In 2016,
nations got together
to decide
they couldn't take in refugees.

Michael Rosen

(please copy this and put it up wherever you can.)

This poem was read out in Trafalgar Square on Saturday

“HOME”
(by Warsan Shire)

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbours running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here.
by Somali poet Warsan Shire

How 'grammar' becomes mystical and takes power away from us

Steps in taking power away from us as speakers and writers:

1 Invent an elaborate set of terms about language which you claim are watertight descriptions of, and terms for what these words do.

2. Keep changing these descriptions and terms as you claim that now you've got a better description or term.

3. As you claim you're explaining these terms,  use expressions like 'Adverbs modify verbs'. This is in fact complete nonsense because 'adverbs' don't do anything. That's just a description or term that someone has invented. In fact 'language' doesn't do anything. We do it. Whenever we use expressions like 'adverbs modify verbs' we turn a concept into a thing, give it mystical power of being able to act on its own without humans involved. This has the advantage for the people using such expressions that it's as if they or we too possess this magical power in the world and if you are a child or someone who doesn't understand the description or term, you are less capable. 

4. The only descriptions and terms for language that actually have sense are those that at least make some nod towards meaning and purpose. When you look down the terms in, say, the DfE's glossary you see that the terms used aren't all of the same kind. It's a ragbag of terms using different methods of description. So, if I describe something as a 'determiner', this is nonsense talk. No word 'determines' another except in the world of giving descriptions mystical powers. If I call a word a 'possessive' though, at least it indicates some degree of meaning and purpose. When I say, 'Give me my hat back' and I call 'my' a 'possessive' at least it gives a bit of a sense that the reason why we have a word like 'my' is because I or you want to express a sense that this 'hat' is 'mine' in real life or in the fictional world I am creating. Not so bad. 

5. The present way of describing language through these terms then leads to the totally false notion that when people use them they will be 'right' or 'wrong'. It's false because again and again, we find that the people who come up with the descriptions and terms can't decide on which one is 'right'! Of course they can't,  because it's a mystical system. The word 'after' in 'I met him after the match.' and 'I met him after the match was over.' - is according to some 'different' in these two examples, but according to others is the 'same' in these two examples. They take chunks out of each other in arguing over it. This doesn't stop the DfE setting children tests in it, for which there is only one right answer. 

6.Even dafter and even more pernicious is the myth that learning this kind of nonsensical stuff will help children write better. All that is happening is that children are being helped to write according to various formulae like 'She used an 'embedded relative clause'. He used a 'fronted adverbial'. She used an 'expanded noun phrase'. To be clear,  this has absolutely nothing to do with 'good writing'. It is writing by numbers and not writing for meaning and purpose. 

7. I know I keep saying it, but let's remember that the only reason why it came in is because the government wanted a 'reliable' means of testing schools and 'writing'. So they invented a test which they said would have 'right and wrong' answers. (See Bew Report, 2011). It was not brought in on the basis of any kind of intellectual argument in favour of this kind of grammar or on the basis of that this kind of grammar does lead to 'good writing'. 

8. Yet again, the powers that control education have succeeded in coming up with tests, theories, practice, and implied teaching methods which take power away from classroom teachers and away from children's control over their own language. Whether they do this knowingly or not is beside the point. It's the consequence that matters. 

9. What is the alternative? At primary school level, the best way to talk about language is to look at examples of language in use - whether that's in the writing that we come across, or in the talk we come across. This immediately connects language with how it's used and why. If we want children to write well - in whatever genre or mode - the best way to to do it is get them to compare, contrast different bits of writing, to imitate, adapt it, invent new ways for their own purposes and to discuss what they've written. It's often a good idea for teacher to write at the same time. It's always a good idea to find ways of publishing and performing what they write - blogs, school bulletins, magazines, posters, booklets, wall-displays at the height the children can read...and so on.

6 thoughts on the DfE 'glossary' and grammar

1. Look away if you're bored stiff by my comments on 'grammar'.

When I was at secondary school we spent many hours distinguishing between what were called 'adjectival phrases' and 'adverbial phrases'. So, according to that system, if I write, 'His face downcast, the boy picked up his knife' they used to say that this described the 'boy' so it was 'adjectival'. But if I wrote, 'In an aggressive manner, the boy picked up his knife' we were told that was 'adverbial' because it modified the verb 'picked up'.

In fact, I would say that these things are 'marginal' in a lot of cases. That's to say these phrases describe both the 'boy' and the 'picking up'! However, in the onrush to tell us that 'fronted adverbials' are magnificent and every child should have one and it's this that makes writing 'good', we're telling children that all these phrases are not only 'adverbial' (even when they don't modify the verb) but also that they're 'better' when they're 'fronted' (i.e. in front of the verb) than when they're somewhere else - 'rear' perhaps.

In other words, - another dodgy term, implying a rule that isn't a rule, a criterion for 'good writing' that isn't a criterion for good writing, another way to get children to be nervous about writing and for some to fail.


2. The government (DfE) has provided a glossary which is intended to be a guide for teachers - and, I guess, parents (?). It’s supposed to cover all questions and problems to do with the stuff that crops up in the SPaG tests.

Here is the link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/244216/English_Glossary.pdf

3. The all-encompassing glossary doesn't cover all the stuff that teachers are supposed to teach. So, for SPaG teachers are supposed to teach 'commands, statements and interrogatives' but you won't find an explanation of these in the glossary. Perhaps they think it's obvious. It isn't - as is demonstrated by the kinds of questions you get on mock SPaG tests which are designed to trick children. What you get is a multiple choice question to choose which of the sentences is a 'command'. In one I saw, it included a 'You must...' construction, as with, say, 'You must go out'. For most children this would sound like a 'command'. But oh no. They use the word 'command' in a technical way - not that you would know from the glossary. That is a 'command' in their book - not in common speech - is a sentence that includes an 'imperative' form of the verb...with or without a 'negative' e.g. 'Don't...' but also 'Go out'. So - lunacy time - 'You must go out' is not a 'command'!!! And 'Go out' is!!! That's because this is a grammar that is not linked to meaning and function. That's why it is ultimately useless.


4. Glossary:

"Traditionally, a clause had to have a finite verb, but most modern grammarians also recognise non-finite clauses."

In other words - we really don't know what to say here. We're going to cover our back by saying 'most modern grammarians' as if that settles anything. So what we're saying is that you can have a 'clause' that doesn't have a 'finite verb' in it. So why is that different from a 'phrase'. ER....it isn't...unless a 'clause' is a phrase with any kind of verb in it. But we haven't said that. That's because we're a bit wobbly on all this. It's possible that these distinctions are meaningless and useless anyway. We won't admit that because we believe in our 'grammar'.


5. From government SPaG glossary:

"Subjunctive:

In some languages, the inflections of a verb include a large range of special forms which are used typically in subordinate clauses, and are called ‘subjunctives’. English has very few such forms and those it has tend to be used in rather formal styles."

Not from government SPaG glossary

"Even though English has 'very few such forms' of the subjunctive and though it tends to be used in 'rather formal styles', we at the DfE will include the subjunctive as one of the questions in the SPaG test. This will confuse and worry your children. Tough. "


6. Another blast from the past about grammar in grammar schools in the 1950s: a lot of effort was put into us getting 'participle phrases' 'right'. (Participle in the context of this post = '-ing word', though there are other ‘participles’. ) So, if I write, 'Walking down the road, I felt a bit funny.' This was 'good' and 'correct' because it's 'I' who is walking down the road. But if write, 'Plunging into the valley below, I saw the waterfall glinting in the sun', this is 'bad' and 'wrong' because it's not 'I' who is plunging but the 'waterfall'.

Quite apart from whether it was 'bad' or 'wrong' (my own view is that most 'dangling participles' are fine because we 'get' what the speaker or writer means from the context), I wonder why SPaG hasn't put this one in their bag of torture tools? But also, why doesn't this kind of phrase count as a 'fronted aderbial'? Perhaps it does, but I don't seem to see them as examples.

Are you teachers 'allowed' to include 'participle phrases' as 'fronted adverbials'...or is it one of those 'real' constructions that are too 'real' for the 'glossary' that's supposed to be the be-all and 'end-all' ?

Here are the DfE's own 'errors' that our children get punished for.

This is a letter from the DfE. I've put into bold the two examples of what the DfE would think of as 'errors' or any of the blah below about 'highest expectations' etc etc. See my previous blogpost about this. I am NOT saying that I think there is anything particularly bad or wrong about these 'errors'. They are the kind of typo and slip that we all make. The problem is that children, teachers and schools are penalized for this sort of thing - ultimately from the DfE themselves!

We recognise that reforms like these take time to embed, but the new tests and the removal of levels are central to achieving our shared goal of giving children the best possible education.

Pupils already take Key Stage 1 tests in Year 2. Teachers use these tests to inform the judgements they report to parents and the Department about their pupils. 

We have developed new tests with a more challenging expected standard to align with the high expectations within the new national curriculum. Our reformed education system has been designed to set expectations that match those in the highest performing jurisdictions internationally. Previous national expectations for primary school pupils were too low and left 1 in 3 children starting secondary school unable to read, write and add-up properly. We make no apology for setting high aspirations for all children and encouraging schools to support every one of their pupils to succeed.

It is worth noting that changes to the national curriculum tests were first announced in March 2014, and since then the Department for Education and Standards and Testing Agency have provided schools with further information to help them prepare for the assessment arrangements. In addition to sample questions published in summer 2014, complete sample tests were published in summer 2015 to give primary schools nearly a year of lead-in time to ensure their pupils are adequately prepared. 

While the new tests have a more challenging expected standard, they do measure attainment across the range of ability in assessing pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the national curriculum. The easiest questions in the tests remain of a similar standard to the easiest questions in the old tests. There are, however, some more difficult questions at the top end of the scale to stretch more able pupils. Furthermore, it is important for parents and teachers to understand how children are performing in relation to national expectations, but statutory tests only form part of the broader assessments that schools make on an ongoing basis.

The removal of national curriculum levels has helped to put classroom assessment back in the hands of teachers by giving schools the freedom to develop their own approaches to assessment within key stages. Levels had a damaging impact on teaching. They encouraging pace over consolidation and incentivising teachers to focus on pupils at level boundaries. Their removal is ensuring that assessment returns to its real purpose of evaluating pupils’ knowledge and understanding of curriculum content. It is allowing teachers to focus on what they do best – teach. The report of the Commission on Assessment Without Levels provides clear guidance and advice for schools to support them in developing high-quality assessment systems This can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/commission-on-assessment-without-levels-final-report

We do recognise that significant reforms like these take time to embed and the Minister of State for Schools has recently written to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, and to Regional Schools Commissioners to emphasise that schools are in a process of transition. 

Primary school standards are rising and the new assessment system will ensure that the work of dedicated teachers throughout the country is recognised and encouraged for years to come. The new Key Stage 1 tests form an important part of that recognition and not to administer them would undermine our shared goal of giving children the best possible education.

Department for Education

Whatever happened to the Dangling Participle Crisis?

Another blast from the past about grammar in grammar schools in the 1950s: a lot of effort was put into us getting 'participle phrases' 'right'. (Participle in the context of this post)  = '-ing word'.) So, if I write, 'Walking down the road, I felt a bit funny.' This was 'good' and 'correct' because it's 'I' who is walking down the road. But if write, 'Plunging into the valley below, I saw the waterfall glinting in the sun', this is 'bad' and 'wrong' because it's not 'I' who is plunging but the 'waterfall'.


Quite apart from whether it was 'bad' or 'wrong' (my own view is that most 'dangling participles' are fine because we 'get' what the speaker or writer means from the context), I wonder why SPaG hasn't put this one in their bag of torture tools? But also, why doesn't this kind of phrase count as a 'fronted aderbial'? Perhaps it does, but I don't seem to see them as examples.


Are you teachers 'allowed' to include 'participle phrases' as 'fronted adverbials'...or is it one of those 'real' constructions that are too 'real' for the 'glossary' that's supposed to be the be-all and 'end-all' ?

The government's glossary on grammatical terms is here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/244216/English_Glossary.pdf

I will try to write about this glossary soon. 

Fronted adverbials - but what about 'fronted adjectivals'? Panic!

When I was at secondary school we spent many hours distinguishing between what were called 'adjectival phrases' and 'adverbial phrases'. So, according to that system, if I write, 'His face downcast, the boy picked up his knife' they used to say that this described the 'boy' so it was 'adjectival'. But if I wrote, 'In an aggressive manner, the boy picked up his knife' we were told that was 'adverbial' because it modified the verb 'picked up'.


In fact, I would say that these things are 'marginal' in a lot of cases. That's to say these phrases describe both the boy and the picking up! However, in the onrush to tell us that 'fronted adverbials' are magnificent and every child should have one and it's this that makes writing 'good', we're telling children that all these phrases are not only 'adverbial' (even when they don't modify the verb) but also that they're 'better' when they're 'fronted' (i.e. in front of the verb) than when they're somewhere else - 'rear' perhaps.

In other words, - another dodgy term, implying a rule that isn't a rule, a criterion for 'good writing' that isn't a criterion for good writing, another way to get children to be nervous about writing and for some to fail.

DfE can't and doesn't stick to its own rules on 'errors' in language

In the letter that has gone out from the DfE regarding the Key Stage 1 tests, there's a 'typo' (a slip that someone hasn't noticed). It says 'They encouraging..'
It's a slip.
In these Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests for KS1 and KS2 there is no such thing as a 'slip'. There is right or wrong. Pass or fail.
That's what they're doing to children. Telling them that there is no such thing as an error. We all make errors. We all make slips. The DfE makes slips. We live with them.
But not children. They're not allowed to make slips. They're not allowed to make errors. It's OK, apparently, to pretend to them that 'we' don't make slips and errors. Or that many of the things the DfE calls an error isn't an error anyway. It's just usage. It's how we speak and write.



(Update: someone's told me that there's also a full stop 'missing' after the word 'systems', as well. Another typo. The kind of thing we tolerate when we write to each other but we're not allowed to tolerate when children do it.)

What they migrate - but don't call 'migration'.

Our governments migrate bombs
but they don't call that migration.
Our governments migrate drones
but they don't call that migration
Our governments migrate bullets
but they don't call that migration.
Our governments migrate war
but they don't call that migration.
Our banks migrate money
but they don't call that migration
Our banks migrate billions
but they don't call that migration.
business migrates jobs
but they don't call that migration
All these people migrate misery
but they don't call that migration.
We say no to blaming migrants
we say no to racism
no to blaming migrants
no to racism.




(I read this at the Demo, Trafalgar Square, March 19 2016)

DfE letter gets their own version of 'grammar' WRONG. DfE FAILS.

The Department for Education has replied to the Petition against SATs. It includes the sentence:




"As this is the first cohort to have reached the end of the key stage it would not be fair or accurate to set the new scale using data from pupils that had studied the old national curriculum."




To be quite clear, I'm relaxed about how this sentence is written. A change is taking place in British English: more and more people are using 'that' where it used to be that we would only hear 'who'. However, the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar tests that children have to sit at the end of Year 2 and Year 6 demand that this should only and always be 'who' when it applies to people - like 'pupils'.




What conclusion should we draw from this?


1. This letter from the DfE reflects how language changes.

2. The people at the DfE find it difficult to follow the instructions about language that they pass down from on high to schools, teachers, parents and children.

3. If they find it difficult, we can assume that teachers, parents and children will find it difficult.

4. It is not only difficult, it's as pointless as trying to nail down the wind.

5. Making this kind of hyper-correctness so important results in teachers, parents and children feeling inadequate and humiliated.

6. The real purpose of making it compulsory that it should be 'who' not 'that' is that examiners - who may themselves only know the 'right' answer because they have the mark book at hand - can mark children right or wrong.

7. Having done the right/wrong mark, the teachers and schools can be judged, teachers can be put under pressure, league tables can be constructed and the whole grisly business of harassment and punishment of teachers and schools goes on and on and on.

8. Nicky Morgan can appear on BBC 'Question Time' and pretend that the reason for the teacher shortage has nothing to do with this punitive environment.

9. Clarification - 'that' to refer to people is OK in 'informal' circumstances according to the Cambridge Grammar - reference point for the UCL linguists who back up the SPaG test. The DfE letter is of course 'formal' and SPaG is entirely about 'correct' English for 'formal' circumstances. That's what underpins the whole malarkey. That's why 'that' in their letter is - according to their rules about 'formal' and 'informal' English is 'wrong'. I repeat, not in my book - in theirs!

How did 'grammar' stage a coup and take control of 'good writing' in primary schools?

An interesting question to ask - well, it's several questions, actually - is why and how 'grammar' staged a coup and took control of 'good writing' in primary schools?

1. First of all, it's only one kind of 'grammar'. Please, please, please don't be kidded into thinking that the stuff the DfE are dishing up as 'grammar' IS grammar. Grammar is the means by which we string words and noises and symbols together to make sense. This grammar is there in place doing its work, whether we have names for it or not. Then there is terminology to describe that grammar. The moment we come up with terminology, we can ask of it, is it describing grammar properly and what are the principles that lie behind the terminology? A good deal of the terminology is what I would call 'self-serving'. It treats language as a 'sealed system' with little or no relation to meaning and function or purpose in our interpersonal relations. So, if I say, something is a 'conjunction' - all that tells us is that it con-joins two things. It doesn't tell me anything about the resultant meaning or why I would want to conjoin anything. Yet, if I say a word is a 'possessive' - this is a completely different kind of description. It says that I,  you, he, she or they 'possess' something. This is then connected to meaning and at least some of its function. So the terminology in traditional grammar is not even consistent with itself! Some of it pretends to take no notice of meaning and actually takes no notice of function. Other terms like 'possessive' take some notice of meaning and function. However, if you think about it, even self-serving terms like 'conjunction' only pretend to take no notice of meaning, because how would you know it was 'con-joining' if you didn't understand the chunks of language it was con-joining?! It just that it doesn't acknowledge this in the term itself.

2. If you look at the grammar foisted now onto schools, teachers, parents and children aged 5-11, it is mostly of the 'self-serving' kind. Teachers are forced to stand in front of classes and tell them about the virtues of 'expanded noun phrases' as examples of 'good writing', along with, say 'fronted adverbials'. To be clear - this is complete garbage. There are no intrinsic reasons why an expanded noun phrase is 'better' than a non-expanded phrase, or a fronted adverbial being better than a 'rear' adverbial. There can only ever be reasons why one is 'better' than the other, if the meaning and purpose are right - or, in short, the context. Sometimes it's good for effect to string a load of adjectives and adjectival phrases, and adjectives modified by adverbs in front of a noun. Sometimes it isn't. It's cods to say otherwise. Cods rules. Same goes for the frontal adverbials.

3. What has happened here is that one specific kind of knowledge (I'd call it 'false knowledge') about language has managed to declare itself THE knowledge about language and that this particular kind of knowledge is what helps you write better. Both these statements are false. There are many kinds of knowledge about language. There are many branches of linguistics and applied linguistics. This false naming of parts approach - with its origins in written (not spoken) Latin, is one kind only. More importantly, if we start with the proposition that we all want children to write well, then we should then ask the question: what kind of knowledge about language will most help to produce good writing? I would suggest that it's the kind of knowledge that comes from investigating language, learning from language, investigating (for example) how my speech might differ from yours, from my parents, or, importantly, from some writing that I have in front of me. It's the kind of knowledge that comes from people who have tried to describe language in terms of meaning and purpose - which means identifying 'semantic fields' and 'intention fields' and the like. So, with exclamations (as discussed on a previous post) the issues to help with writing is 'how do we exclaim?' We exclaim in many different ways. What are these ways? Let's look at some exclamations in novels, newspapers and online.  Are any ways better or more useful than other ways? When might we use one way rather than another? We might look at some of the terms to describe these and, indeed, just like any scientist would, ask ourselves whether these terms are good enough or useful enough. Meanwhile, the simplest and easiest way of investigating this with young  children is looking at their favourite writers, see how they do things and say, 'Well, we could do that, couldn't we?' and we can imitate, adapt - and importantly, invent new ways derived from the ones we're looking at...or ones that just come into our heads. (That's more or less how I run poetry workshops.)

4. How did this stuff stage the coup? Because the 'naming of parts' approach can be marked as right or wrong. That's all. Not because it's right or suitable or that it is better at producing good writing than other approaches to knowledge about language. Simply and only because it produces right and wrong answers. This both satisfies a never-ending wish to assess teachers (rather than help them), and a need that some people have that there is only one way to speak and write - the one that is laid down by some authority somewhere rather than our own democratic ability to talk and write to each other and control ourselves and how we want to do it. This is just too democratic for some people.