Thursday, January 10, 2013

Grammar for teachers (and students)

Michael Rosen - poet, socialist, writer of the mighty Bear Hunt and all-round good guy - has been adding some new material to his blog recently, posting material aimed at Key Stage 2 teachers who are worried about their own grammar knowledge, in the run-up to the new KS2 grammar tests. This is something I'm particularly interested in , both as a father of twin boys who are going to sit the test in May this year and a sad grammar nerd, but I think it has relevance to A level students too.

Grammar teaching has had a pretty vexed history, with arguments raging for decades about its use and effects. I  won't go into all of that here, because I've tried to cover it in a previous incarnation as a language researcher at the Survey of English Usage at UCL and posted a lot about it on this other blog, but it is well worth taking a look at Michael Rosen's stuff to get a sense of the bigger picture where grammar is concerned.

Black British English vs MLE

The latest episode of Lexis is out and it features an interview with Ife Thompson about lots of issues connected to Black British English, i...