I used to think that people who didn’t speak the same way I did weren’t speaking properly. I was a snob in this respect, because I didn’t distinguish between people making genuine errors (“pacifically” and “specifically” mean completely different things, for example), and people who spoke in a different way from me because they came from other places and used words and phrases that were unfamiliar to me.

However, completing a PGCE made me consider more carefully the disparities between the language children enter the classroom with and the language we teach.

Perfect present?

One day, I was teaching a lesson about the present perfect tense. The present perfect tense is confusing, because it is about the past, but it also has “present” in the name and sometimes it feels more to do with the present than the past: “She has lived here all her life,” for example.

As the children grappled with whether “I have lived here for five years” was or was not an example of the present perfect, I felt a bit silly. How was this going to help them become better writers?

These children were predominantly middle-class, native English speakers, who would use this construction correctly when needed without realising they were doing so. And here I was, with my two English degrees, only certain I knew the right answer because I’d double checked it on Google earlier. (It is an example of the present perfect, by the way.)

Disconnect

Of course, one reason to teach grammar in such a precise way is to teach children things they do not know: the correct use of the English language. If you want to go on to learn other languages, this is incredibly useful knowledge. And, as someone who revels in language and grammar, I am totally on board.

However, the disconnect between natural language use and classroom teaching was apparent even among a class of mostly middle-class children with southern accents. So, what would it look like for the children in the class who spoke a local dialect and perhaps didn’t naturally use the same grammatical constructions in speech?

Over the past year, I’ve had a number of conversations with one particular child about editing his work. I have noticed that, aside from spelling errors, what we have discussed has almost exclusively been his use of phrases and more broadly a tone of language deemed to be too informal for most school writing. This tone comes from the fact that this child writes in much the same way as he speaks, and his speech has distinctive elements of the dialect that reflect his background.

‘Won’t’ vs ‘will not’

Considering language register provides one potential solution. Even people who speak in very proper English will make choices about register. For example, you might say “I won’t go,” but write “I will not go,” or perhaps even “I will not attend.”

It is certainly important for children to learn about this, and to understand that spoken language is often different from written language, and that written language varies hugely depending on the context. For example, a birthday card is used to convey an emotional message, whereas a poster about an event needs to contain factual information in a clear form.

There are many strategies available to help this boy to develop his writing style, so that he achieves higher marks in exams. The fact that he needs to alter his writing, and adopt a language that isn’t natural to him in order to do so, reveals a far more interesting and problematic issue.

Diversity

In considering this, I have returned again and again to the words of James Kelman, a Glaswegian writer who won the Booker Prize in 1994, amid some controversy. Kelman’s prose is virtually entirely in Scots dialect - a fact that resulted in substantial criticism. In his Booker Prize acceptance speech, Kelman said: “My culture and my language have a right to exist.”

I cannot get this out of my head (and I don’t think I should) when I have those discussions with children about their language.

Choosing the correct register to speak or write in is important, and so is using grammar and punctuation accurately to convey meaning. But it seems to me that it is equally important to celebrate the voices of individual children and to embrace the diversity of culture these bring.

Isabel Jeakins is a newly qualified teacher in the West of England