How Linguistics Has Influenced Schools in England

The article reviews a number of changes in English schools that can be attributed to the influence of linguistics. The most obvious one is the introduction of a course on the English language, which occupies about a third of the last 2 years of secondary school (A-level English language) and which has proved extremely popular with pupils. Other changes are due to two influential ideas: language awareness (the subject ‘language’ unites English and foreign-language classes and pupils should learn about its general characteristics) and knowledge about language (pupils should learn explicitly about language structure). These two ideas have had a major impact on recent changes in the teaching of both first-language English and foreign languages, both of which have emerged from a ‘grammarless’ period; the teaching of grammar (and other aspects of language structure) is now required by official documents, although it is not always easy for teachers who themselves know little grammar.