Under which government did the teaching of grammar rules end?

Question

I'm 35 and I'm crap at the rules of grammar. i.e. what the hell is a pronoun. I know that during my years in education grammar was not taught in the UK in the way it had been taught in the years previously. i.e. if we were lucky we were taught what a noun, a verb and an adjective was. But no way did we get as far as a pronoun. All my friends of the same age are exactly the same. Does anyone know under which government the teaching of grammatical rules was dispensed with?

Answer 1

I'm surprised by this. I live in America and I read a lot of online fiction and fanfiction and have always thought that these for "fun and hobby" only (not professional) writers from the UK were excellent - far better than the majority of US writers I read. I'm not sure of the age of the writers I'm fond of, but maybe they're a bit older than you - possibly closer to 40 - maybe even older. I was just talking to someone the other day wondering how the public educational system in England differs from ours with regard to writing skills, grammar and the english language - because I've always been so impressed. I know that our Catholic schools used to teach sentence structure with diagramming sentences - I'm not sure if today that's still part of their curriculum. I know that, when I went to grammar school and junior high in the 70's, diagramming was never a part of English class. I too have no real grasp of grammar and see the same in my coworkers and friends. I'm appalled and sometimes embarrased at most of what goes out in our office in emails.

I've included a link to a paper discussing just this question. It appears that both the US and UK after some published studies, decided against teaching grammar in the late 60's, claiming that children were unable to learn grammar skills and it was useless to waste time teaching it and that it actually hurt their creativity to spend so much time on the details. I find the fact that there were studies done that proved that the absence of grammar didn't hurt writing skills to be rediculous. How could anyone believe this, let alone prove it. But it seems as though grammar studies might be making a comeback - I'm guessing the last couple of generations of poor writers is a clue that removing it from schools was a mistake. But in this day and age, when most are writing in net speak shorthand in chatrooms and emails and some teachers are even accepting assignments written in this new language - claiming language is evolutionary and needs to change with the times, I think it's a good time for it to make a comeback. I have no problem with netspeak, it has it's place, but will someday it's place be in a New York Times Bestseller?

Answer 2

It came about because lazy and trendy teachers forty years ago decided that free expression was better than having to work at teaching standard rules. The only fault of successive governments then was not to stand up to the teaching unions. Look at the fuss teachers are making now over the compulsory testing that is required of them. Teachers, like politicians, hate and avoid being called into account. Now they preside over a system that alienates children, children who will never learn how to use their language properly. And don't let them point to A-level results. A level questions now require the level of arithmetic I learned when I was eight or nine.

And how come "puzzled?" missed out? And "what?" is lucky in that she has a choice. Not many British people under forty have the ability to reject good English, even if they want to.

Answer 3

As I understand it, the stopped teaching much in the way of grammar shortly after my younger brother left senior school and started again about 10-15 years ago when they suddently realised how stupid that decision had been. Certainly when my stepdaughter (now 30) was at school her grammar and spelling were not corrected at all! I remember being horrified and getting told off by her teachers for stifling her creativity when I tried to correct them!

That puts it somewhere in the early 80s so presumably it was Maggie Thatcher!

Answer 4

I am your age and was taught good grammar at all the schools I attended, most of the time I choose to be informal and not use it, but I can if I have to.

Answer 5

it hasn`t been the rules of grammar are still taught in schools today

Answer 6

well that answers the question why theres so much bad grammar on here !

Answer 7

Probably the liberal Socialist agenda or The Homosexual Agenda, which is now considered more important, apparently.