Over the summer of 2021, several stories about the English language made the headlines. While Lord Digby Jones attacked the BBC’s Alex Scott for how she pronounces -ing, some news outlets were predicting the demise of northern accents and others were lamenting the apparent overuse of “so” in speech.
It’s no great surprise: the English language is a fascinating topic for discussion and one that many of us (especially English teachers) feel deeply invested in. And yet, language education in England has never been high on the agenda and it’s not even something that we really get to talk about as part of the current (and inaccurately named) English language GCSE.
The National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) published a survey this summer that found there was a general dissatisfaction with the current GCSE on the part of both teachers and students. This has been a trend for a while now: back in 2019, the English and Media Centre’s survey of teachers showed that only a tiny minority of teachers had anything positive to say about the English language GCSE.
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Student numbers are markedly down at A level, too, and while recruitment to Stem subjects and the reforms to A levels - including the widespread dropping of AS levels - have had an impact, interest in English (especially language and combined language/literature) at A level has plummeted.
NATE is campaigning for reform of the GCSE entirely, but at a practical level, in classrooms, what can teachers do?
1. Promote A-level study to GCSE students
Secondary teachers have a big part to play in promoting A-level English. They need to show GCSE students the scope and excitement of genuine language study - from the kind of language stories that make the news and what linguists can say about them to social class, language attitudes and using linguistics to solve crimes.
We need to inject some more variety and range into our own teaching of the language elements of English.
2. Utilise media attention
Taking some of the language stories from the summer as a starting point, teachers could, for example, look at the whole idea of accent prejudice. Why does the pronunciation of -ing create such a reaction and why do certain accents generate such hate?
A pretty basic discussion of the differences between writing and speaking can reveal that there is no “g” to be dropped in “swimming” and “cycling”. We generally don’t pronounce a “g” sound at all in words like that and if we do (perhaps saying “singer” like “finger”), we’re probably from the West Midlands, an area that usually comes out very low in polls of favoured accents in the UK.
We can think about other sounds, too - the glottal stop or the d-stop (“dat” instead of “that”). From there, it’s just a small step to a wider discussion about why certain accents are stigmatised and not others.
3. Make the most of the space and time in KS3
Secondary English teachers, as part of CLAW (the Critical Language Awareness Group), are also developing ways to foreground language and attitudes to its use in their teaching.
While the GCSE specifications offer limited scope for an exploration of issues around accent prejudice, language diversity and spoken language, KS3 offers us some space and time. Schemes of learning that put students’ own local language/s first and then promote a contextualised discussion of standardised English and where it comes from can open up the debate.
Teachers should also engage students in discussions on their own schools’ language policies around slang, dialect and spoken registers. This can offer a counter-narrative to more repressive “slang bans” and policies of “zero tolerance” for non-standard English.
4. Make it personal
With students coming to KS3 from a KS2 English curriculum with grammar at its core, there’s actually a chance to build on that and develop the focus into a wider understanding of other aspects of language and show the choices that we can all make about the language we use - in both writing and speech.
The practical applications of this can be powerful. Understanding key differences between speech and writing can help students shape their own expression for different contexts, while an understanding of the patterns and structures of speech - be they dialect forms, the ways we construct spoken utterances or just the different cadences of talk - allows them to craft more effective and varied dialogue in creative work or in formal spoken presentations.
And the wider understanding of how language works - the power structures behind it and who has that power - is something all of us who teach English can see value in, as it allows our students to engage critically with all the language used around them, be that advertising, journalism, social media or political rhetoric.
With genuine language study out of the picture at GCSE, for the time being at least, KS3 and A-level English language allow us the chance to explore language in more interesting ways. But while we can make the most of these opportunities, we need to also push for more language study across the secondary English curriculum. After all, if English teachers can’t argue for the value of studying the language we use all the time, no one else is going to do it for us.
Dan Clayton is an A-level English language teacher and education consultant at the English and Media Centre.
On Wednesday 24 November, the English and Media Centre are hosting ‘Looking into Language’, a free online conference for Years 10 and 11. Find out more here.
