AUSTRALIAN schools are failing students with poor spelling and grammar and the time has come to reintroduce the direct teaching of basic English language skills, The Australian reported.
The results of the English Language and Literacy Assessment (ELLA) reveal that a majority of students have difficulty with spelling, punctuation and grammar. The ELLA programme was introduced in 1997 as part of the New South Wales (NSW) Government's literacy strategy and is compulsory for all Year 7 students entering high school. Students are assessed on their writing, reading and knowledge of language, and are required to write two passages, answer questions after reading a piece, and identify grammatical components, correct spelling and punctuation mistakes.
When asked about the phrase "made Nick's eyes water" in this year's test, only 40 per cent of students identified the word "water" as a verb and just 44 per cent knew the words "calm", "still" and "unexpected" were adjectives.
When given misspelt words to correct, one in four students was able to spell "accommodation", 37 per cent could spell "scaly", 47 per cent could spell "razor" and 53 per cent could spell "paid".
But almost one in five students was unable to correct the sentence, "Then Ron and me had lunch", while only 35 per cent corrected "could of" to "could have".
"These results indicate we are failing our students, the system is failing the students,"said Julie Bisho, Federal Education Minister of Australia. She said the results were unacceptable and were the result of specific lessons on grammar and spelling being dropped. "Over recent decades, the teaching of grammar, spelling, syntax and sentence construction has become an optional extra. It should be fundamental. It's the building blocks for clear and precise communication. It's a question of priorities and in this instance, the fundamentals of our own language must be taught in schools," she said.
Jean Mulder, senior lecturer in the school of languages and linguistics at Melbourne University, designed the English language course in Victoria for Year 11 and 12 students, which teaches grammar as part of a study of literature and language. She said most students who were familiar with grammar had learnt it from studying a second language, where grammar was specifically taught.
"It's time to rethink the way grammar and language is taught, but not just simply repeating the traditional grammar approach of being taught by rote," she said, "It needs to be taught in context, by looking at the way words are used, not just their function, and in doing that to be able to name things, like this word is a verb, this word is a noun."
But the NSW Education Department said this year's results were "exceptionally good", with the overall results for combined reading, writing and language the best since the test was introduced.
In the language assessment, the results were comparable to previous years. The tests are marked within a range of 45 to 120, and the average score this year was 88.8, the same as last year's average and almost at the high point of 88.9 in 2004.
