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.

I wish I'd been taught English grammar properly, it would have made French and German grammar easier as we'd have known what was meant by cases, subjunctives etc. My German A level lecturer had to give us a few classes in English grammar as none of us (originating from different schools) knew what he was talking about.

Because it really helps when learning a foreign language - and we're really shit at that too.

Our kids wouldn't last a week in a french school, even if everything was in English. Our schools are so relaxed it's ridiculous.

@painauraisin

So they can pass the SPaG test in Year 6 SATs.

This!

What @IAMGE said;

"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."

The "fronted adverbial" stuff is completely unnecessary. And I don't remember the details but there is some ridiculous rule about when they can and can't use an exclamation mark. But both of my DC's would point out examples in books they were reading where it wasn't used "correctly" so could see it was all ridiculous.

Learning grammar properly is essential if you want to learn other languages. I think it is a really good think to learn. Also bad grammar insanely annoying for a pedant like me. Really, it is not that hard 😂

@badg3r then you should check your own spelling / use the correct word if it annoys you so much

@worriedatthistime ah one of my people 😂 I adopt the do as I say not as I do mentality in my proofreading. Surely one day there will be an edit button...

I have a team of 20 at work. It is evident who went to RG uni's and former Polys and a far higher percentage of the RG cohort were independently educated than otherwise.

It's because you can test knowledge of grammatical concepts with multiple choice papers or yes no questions which can be assessed quickly and easily without skill, whereas assessing the much more important things like understanding and creativity takes time and skill.

I'm a grammar geek and get appalled by people's poor use of apostrophes, there/their/they're etc. But encouraging kids to read more would do just as much if not more to cement the rules of the language than such explicit teaching if grammar. Learning to name parts of speech is much less useful than learning how to use them correctly. Plus it's boring so it makes kids lose interest in learning. Reading and doing creative writing teaches much more and makes kids interested in learning.

Young children learn grammar rules just by absorbing language around them. So when a young child says "I goed to the park" it's because they have unknowingly learnt that the past tense is made by added ed to the verb. Then later they learn that "to go" is an irregular verb and the past tense is "went." They do this without anyone teaching them what a verb is.

@savehannah yes i agree put both my ds off english , that and the quiz's after reading a book.
Until then they enjoyed reading , they both are ok at grammar but lost all interest in english, writing and reading

@RosesAndHellebores and are they actually better at their jobs though?

@Pinklimey

Because we were all a bit shit at grammar at schools and parents asked why. Now grammar is hugely pushed at school and we ask why 🤷🏽‍♀️

It really was dire in the 70s and 80s.

It’s important for clear communication, and to give you foundation rules of how languages work for when you need to use new ones.

… I think it should be taught better BTW, and in relation to literature rather than a tick box exercise - but I do think it needs to be taught.

When you brought up computers you lost me OP.

Where we live, not UK (but we are Britons) our kids learn grammar extensively in primary school, because grammar is the backbone of all language and it's absolutely necessary.

To not see its purpose and to view it as a waste of resources is highlighting your own lack in both critical thinking OP and foresight.

People, or most specifically young adults without good grammar find themselves very often at the bottom of the rung career-wise and educationally and this is no reflection of their intellect.
This is a bloody shame.

Michael Gove!

At @worriedatthistime no but they will hit a glass ceiling. It's not about race or sex but class.

@painauraisin

So they can pass the SPaG test in Year 6 SATs.

DS came from overseas just before the Easter of year 6. Sent home with revision papers. After Easter he told his teacher he hadn't learnt any of the grammar, she managed to spend a bit of time with him (in reality couldn't have been long!) and he passed the SPaG section no problem.

@Toddlerteaplease

My mum was a primary school teacher. I had absolutely no clue what all the terms she was using were. I was never taught them. Came massively unstuck when I did GCSE German as had no idea what a split infinitive was or anything apart from the very basics!

I wasn't taught grammar at school but had no problem with my German O level. I got an A grade.

I only found out what a split infinitive was when I was an adult and heard someone talking about Star Trek

[quote dottyspotmonster]@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.[/quote]
Simply speaking the language is all very well, but what if you grow up surrounded by people whose grasp of the language is less than eloquent?

Not everyone is equipped with the wherewithal to do what you did. It might magically merge in your brain, but it certainly doesn't for everyone.