ENGLISH—WHOSE STANDARDS?

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 21

ENGLISH—WHOSE STANDARDS?

Academics say Prince Charles is wrong in supposing that bad teaching is responsible for poor literacy in Britain

JUDITH JUDD argues that encouraging children to communicate is more vital than “essential” grammar. Her article follows comments made in Britain recently by Prince Charles about having to correct letters written by his staff because English was taught “so bloody badly.” He said that people in his office could neither speak English properly nor write it properly. —

MY GRANDMOTHER, who left school at 13 to start work in a cotton mill, was erratic in her spelling and uncertain in her punctuation. Yet she never had the slightest difficulty in expressing her thoughts clearly. She had an original turn of phrase including some vivid Lancashire expressions — "nowt a pound” was a term of denigration, “jumped up’ un” was her word for arriviste. Unlike the Prince of Wales, her vocabulary was so rich that she never had to resort to a swear word for emphasis. Quite rightly, the art of communication, . in which she excelled, has been central to the teaching of English for the last 30 years. Unfortunately, it has sometimes swamped everything else.

During the 1960 s there were some teachers who believed that if schools looked after creativity, grammar and punctuation would look after themselves. They were wrong and, though they were probably always a minority, they earned the profession a bad name.

Professor Brian Cox, head of the recent Government working party reports on English, berated their progressive education theories in a series of Black Papers. Now, says Professor Cox, schools are better. The vast majority of teachers believe their pupils must be taught correct grammar and spelling. Recently, he described the Prince of Wales’ blast against the state teaching as “out of

Presumably, his complaints are directed at private schools which most of his staff attended. But State schools have their problems too. Of course there are plenty of old wives’ tales about job applicants who don’t know the correct use of was and were but endless grumbles from employers- about the standards of English among school leavers cannot be simply brushed aside. University academics argue that the failure to teach grammatical terms such as participle makes it difficult to explain grammatical errors to students. Even at Oxford there has been an outcry about undergraduates’ English. However, the real literacy problem in BrKain is not that old Etonians and Olford undergraduates cannot spell. It is that six

million adults have difficulty reading or in writing English which can easily be understood. Barry Barker, secretary and chief executive of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, says: "Spelling and punctuation are minor points. It is the ability to write clearly in a way which won’t be misconstrued which is sqjjoor.” Standards are poor, but not necessarily falling. “You have to

remember that the sort of people who become typists now would have been domestic servants 30 years ago. Intelligent people do other jobs.” He claims that grammatical errors on students’ exam papers are not corrected by the colleges and polytechnics marking them. To blame all literacy problems on schools and colleges* is simplistic. The literacy Tunit which advises local authorities

believes the causes of illiteracy are complex. Bad teaching and poor teacher training are certainly two of them, but childhood illness or emotional disturbance, speech difficulties and lack of parental encouragement are also important. Illiteracy as the Victorians understood it — the inability to write your own name — is nowadays largely a myth. j Only 300,000 adults in Britain ’ cannot read or write at all but,

because the demands made on people are so much greater than they were a century ago, millions of others are severely handicapped. Some have such a weak grasp of grammar and spelling that their written English is unintelligible. As long ago as 1972 three people were burned to death in a & cinema because they could not T read the “Exit” signs. Students receiving help on adult literacy

schemes range from 25-year-olds to pensioners. So the Prince is wrong to suppose that modern teaching methods are the cause of school leavers’ inadequacies and that a return to old-fashioned grammar lessons and drilling would solve the problem. Kenneth Baker, the Education Secretary, agrees. Though he welcomed the Prince’s words, he has just endorsed a report from Professor Cox’s working party which outlaws drill and formal grammar. There is not a shred of evidence in 30 years research to show that the methods the Prince is advocating are conducive to improved standards of literacy. Most adults who come forward for help with reading and‘writing have been so put off by rote learning at school that

they failed to learn anything. Such methods rely on good shortterm memories and those who have difficulty with English are usually people with poor memories.

A series of initiatives such as the National Writing Project have shown that it is essential to encourage small children to express themselves without worrying too much about the spelling and grammar. In primary schools, confidence is the key to the acquisition of basic skills. Those who demand that every error made by a seven-year-old should be encircled in red are more likely to increase than reduce the illiteracy rate. Correct grammar and spelling has to be built up gradually. Children also need to see the purpose of what they are doing. They write best when they are, for example, writing a letter to a real person rather than carrying out formal exercises. And Professor Cox is right to suggest that schools are improving. There is growing co-opera-tion between business and education and a new awareness of the need for language skills, though there is still a long way to go. It is right to be concerned about the standard of English speaking and writing. Our language is part of our identity and our grasp of it reveals the extent of our grip on life. Those who lack the basic skills are disadvantaged at every turn. But it would be a tragedy if an outcry over literacy were to lead to an obsession with apostrophes and parsing at the expense of, {encouragement to communicator Copyright London Observer.