Why is there so much intensive learning around English grammar at primary school now?

[dottyspotmonster]

Just helping my dc through their independent and dependent clauses Easter homework.
My dc seems to have a heavy load of grammatical terms and their meanings to learn, when really as long as you speak the language you know them anyway surely.
Seems a waste of time when it could be spent learning more useful things.

To be able to communicate effectively in written form is a skill for life.

I’m less fussed about spelling, but punctuation and grammar proficiency are important.

As they say, commas save lives -
‘Let’s eat dad!’ versus ‘Let’s eat, dad.’

The problem is that the sort of grammar that might be useful is ignored (eg - me, myself, I, who/whom, apostrophes etc), while the focus seems to be on things like fronted adverbials, which have no meaning at all outside SATs.

@samG76

The problem is that the sort of grammar that might be useful is ignored (eg - me, myself, I, who/whom, apostrophes etc), while the focus seems to be on things like fronted adverbials, which have no meaning at all outside SATs.

I’m an English teacher and that’s not true.

@7eleven i think that's useful grammar, but even so, I can read it in context and work it out tbh.

It's more things like the terms applied to grammatical situation, things like, what is a contraction, a conjunction, a suffix. I know all of those things in the use of language but didn't really know what they were called.
They have always been used by me naturally through learning how to speak, how to write and just saying things out loud I can hear and see where everything should go in a sentence.
To sit there and have everyone specifically learn that something is a conjunction and then be tested on 'conjunctions' separately seems a strange concept to me.

Take verbs. Without learning grammar, how else are children going to learn when to use the right sentence structure and tenses?

I go
I am going
I am going to go
I will go
I will be going
I would have gone
I went
I did go
I was going
I had gone
I have gone

and no doubt there are many others, just for the verb for 'to go'.

Just being able to speak a language doesn't mean that you comprehend the reasons behind all those differences. If you don't understand the reasons, you can't construct written sentences properly or apply the rules to other verbs.

You don't need to know what a fronted adverbial or a subjunctive whatever is to use English correctly. I've got no idea what most of this stuff is, and I went to a Grammar school! I also have 3 degrees in essay-based subjects and I am the person at work usually asked to proof read.

The actual reason for all this formal grammar is that Michael Gove wanted to do away with all this lefty liberal "thinking for themselves" kids were learning at school and replace it with cold hard facts that could be memorised and tested. It's the same school of thought that's led to kids being expected to learn dates and names of kings in History rather than understanding why things happened.

@chisanunian I don't think I was ever formally taught your example. Don't you think we just pick these things up from being immersed in our own language? Where we get it wrong we're usually following other commonly accepted usage and we can still be understood. When people use 'myself' incorrectly it makes my hair stand on end but I know what they mean because they're misusing it in the same way as every other idiot person who's been taught it's the formal version of 'me'.

I am a thousand percent in favour of schools teaching grammar properly. We had grammar lessons at school, and as a result, we were all able to communicate effectively. You can't do this without grammar and syntax.

I also speak four languages, and a knowledge of grammar (in particular Latin) is useful for this purpose.

I don't think you need to be explicitly taught grammar in your native language. You know it intuitively.
I don't remember being explicitly taught grammar and I managed to the get a level 6 in my year 6 English SATs and A's in my English GCSEs.

I wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between a noun and a verb until I started to seriously learn a second language as an adult.

The "myself" snobbery irritates me as it is gramatically correct in the Irish language, and is therefore commonly used in Ireland when speaking English. Lots of phrases have been directly translated from Irish grammar constructions.

@chisanunian there's no way I didn't already know all of those examples by simply speaking the language.

When I learnt learnt other languages I simply translated the equivalent. In fact when I finally lived in France that's when the full learning kicked in, when I was speaking it day to day and it somehow magically merges into the brain rather than learning out of a text book about verb formations etc.

@Fahrted in my school you had to learn all of the grammatical formations of a sentence etc when you chose to learn latin not before.
There was an expectation that you could already fluently form a sentence in English by the time this choice came around aged 13 though.

I myself think its' something that should of always been learnt and I aks myself all the time if the teachers was doing it proper.

I'm a professional writer and proofreader. I don't know what half the terms are, but I know how to write well, because I read. If children were strongly encouraged and facilitated to read for pleasure grammar would naturally improve.

@Pashazade

It's taught to the ridiculous level it is at the moment because you can test it easily. Something is right or wrong. Given all primary school seems to be about is testing then grammar taken to this extreme allows for that. I'm not saying basic grammar shouldn't be taught, I wish I had been taught the basics in the 80's. However the heavy reliance on it now is just depressing and can really put children off learning to use the language and enjoying writing.

exactly. i agree with this and with the OP. how it stifles creativity, we murder to dissect, as the poet said. i also think it adds to mental stress on children. why burden them with this. learning should be enjoyable. this seems like the worst of the victorian attitude, gradgrind.

@dottyspotmonster

But what about all the availability of computers that correct everything for you? I use tools when I need to write something properly. Admittedly I wouldn't use it on Mn but I'm not overly fussed about being judged on here. I would use it for something like a CV.

I do not get things like learning about an independent or dependent clause, or
Subjunctive verbs
Onomatopoeia
Subject pronouns
These things just exist surely.

Also universities are in the middle of a row because they've dropped their standards on grammar for a lot of subjects too, so even less likely to be downgraded for a lack of knowledge of your onomatopoeic words these days.

My argument is more that it's a massive waste of limited resources and time, in an ideal world everyone would know everything but for most state schools in the U.K., we are far from an ideal world.

Grammar seems to be an ancient pursuit in comparison to something like more time spent coding or other skills.

Anyone learning coding is effectively learning a language, so having a good grounding in the grammar and syntax of the language they actually speak is a very good introduction to learning the grammar and syntax of coding languages.

I think grammar is being taught in too much detail at quite an early point in education. I speak a handful of languages and wasn't drilled in "expanded noun phrases" etc in KS1.

We transferred DS at 9 to the local prep of a leading SW London independent team school. He was and is a natural linguist and shone at English at his leafy primary. We were shocked at how much he had to catch up in his first year.

Having been surprised at how much he had to catch up, we shouldn't have been very surprised. The HT of the primary who took the school to outstanding and is now a super head once wrote in a newsletter "there was an extra 100 dinners served at Christmas lunch".

If I have an issue with an increased emphasis on the teaching of grammar I think it is probably because the teachers teaching it have been badly taught themselves and may not be confident in the application of the principles.

@SaskiaRembrandt can you give an example as to why it helps?
I don't disbelieve you but am sat next to someone who codes every day and is disagreeing with your post.

If children were strongly encouraged and facilitated to read for pleasure grammar would naturally improve

I agree with this, but most teachers raced through books and don’t explain the context, pick of the verbs, look up word meaning effectively showing children how to learn to read and infer. It doesn’t to me naturally to everyone.

Why is there so much intensive learning around English grammar at primary school now?

Why have you used 'around' in this sentence? You don't learn 'around' grammar, you learn grammar.
Grr.

@PastMyBestBeforeDate

Michael Gove's desire to replicate his grammar school experience.

There's no need to teach the level of grammar to primary school children that is happening now. Yes they should be learning to spell and punctuate. And they should be expanding their reading and vocabulary. Learning what a fronted adverbial is? Not so much. If they read well, they'll use those styles anyway.

This

@raspberrymuffin

You don't need to know what a fronted adverbial or a subjunctive whatever is to use English correctly. I've got no idea what most of this stuff is, and I went to a Grammar school! I also have 3 degrees in essay-based subjects and I am the person at work usually asked to proof read.

The actual reason for all this formal grammar is that Michael Gove wanted to do away with all this lefty liberal "thinking for themselves" kids were learning at school and replace it with cold hard facts that could be memorised and tested. It's the same school of thought that's led to kids being expected to learn dates and names of kings in History rather than understanding why things happened.

This- primary school children needs to know: Capital letters and full stops Commas Nouns Verbs Adverb Adjective Pronouns Exclamation marks Questions marks Speech marks

That’s it. The rest should be done at secondary.

Because correct grammar is the difference between 'helping your uncle, Jack, off a horse' and 'helping your uncle jack off a horse'.

@BeforeGodAndAllTheFish they only look stupid to judgemental people
If you know what someone means then why do you feel the need to judge and think you are a better person because your educated ?
That is a poorer quality in a person I would say

@pointythings exactly but many on here will disagree as anyone who makes a mistake is stupid and educated people have no time for anyone else
Forgetting that this is just a chat site , its not a formal letter and many make typo's or mistakes as on small screens.
Apparently judging others is very alive in mumsnet and if you can knock someone down even more , even better