THE Australian national English curriculum will include a grammar guide setting out a systematic course of study and the concepts students should learn. Submissions on English curriculum-framing were solicited and they overwhelmingly supported teaching grammar, but teachers disagree on the type of grammar that should be taught and how it should be taught, The Australian has reported.
In a bid to stop any grammar war before it begins, the Australian National Curriculum Board (NCB) declared from the start that students should learn traditional grammar that is integrated into English courses as part of study of the language. The board has commissioned a study on the nature of grammar in the curriculum, including a list of what should be taught at each stage of schooling. The report said 96 percent of submissions “enthusiastically endorsed” the teaching of grammar. However, many suggestions called for the curriculum to avoid advocating one kind of grammar over another, and others called for a blending of traditional and functional grammar.
The three main forms of grammar are: traditional grammar, systemic functional grammar and transformational or generative grammar. Peter Knapp, an education consultant and expert in the teaching of grammar and writing, said transformational and systemic functional grammar were academic tools for analyzing texts at a more sophisticated level and not the tools to teach children how to write. According to Knapp, traditional grammar is most suitable because it tells students what words are and what they do. NCB chairman Barry McGaw said the board was yet to determine which types of grammar might be included in the curriculum, but traditional grammar would be the first choice.
Teachers were also opposed to the idea of grammar being taught as an isolated skill and then tested as a separate subject in national literacy tests, as is currently done. McGaw stressed that although grammar should not be taught totally in isolation from writing, it did need to be explicitly and systematically taught.
He concluded that the grammar guide would set out a scope and sequence for grammar teaching. “We don’t want to just nod in the direction of grammar, and (say) that it should be taught and at the word and sentence level, we need to say what that means,” he said.
