Education Committee Report to LAGB 2010 Annual General Meeting [Draft, 21 August 2010]

Members of the Education Committee (EC) have been involved in a number of matters relating to linguistics and pre-HE education in the United Kingdom, largely, but not exclusively, through the workings of the Committee for Linguistics In Education (CLIE).

  1. United Kingdom Linguistics Olympiad

The 2010 UKLO took place in February and March. Round 1 of the competition was held in schools, and was divided into Foundation and Advanced level (with only the latter qualifying for possible progression to round 2). 197 students took part in the Foundation level competition, and 406 took part in the Advanced level competition. The youngest students taking part were aged 11-12; the youngest students taking part in the Advanced level were aged 13.

12 entrants were invited to take part in round 2, a residential weekend held at the University of Sheffield. In addition to the test, Two members of the LAGB Education Committee, and a teacher from Manchester Grammar School (Neil Sheldon), provided tuition and advice on the kinds of problems that feature in the International Linguistics Olympiad (ILO). The performance of the participants was so good that it was decided to send two teams of four to the ILO in Stockholm. One of the UK team members was awarded a bronze medal, another a ‘best solution’ award, and two others received honourable mentions.

Further information about the Olympiad is available from the website ( The UKLO committee has been greatly encouraged by the enthusiasm of students and teachers involved in the competition this year. Registration for entry to the 2011 competition is in progress: again, round 1 will be held in schools, and round 2 will be a residential course, this time at the University of Edinburgh.

UKLO relies on donations from sponsors in order to continue its work, and the committee is very grateful to the LAGB for its donation in 2010. We hope that the LAGB will be able to make a further donation in the current year.

  1. PGCE report

CLIE commissioned a report from Julie Blake and Tim Shortis (KCL) on the preparedness of graduates to teach English in secondary schools in England. Part of the funding for the research on which this report was based was provided by LAGB. The report involved a survey of tutors from 35 of the 54 English PGCE courses in England, and interviews with a subset of nine tutors. The report revealed that PGCE tutors surveyed did not consider English literature graduates to be adequately prepared to teach English language topics above GCSE level. Student teachers with English language or combined language and literature degrees were more equipped to teach language but often required more support in some areas of literature, media and drama. Recommendations to government and course providers are also included in the report, which is available from the CLIE website (

  1. The Languages Diploma

As members may know, the previous government planned to extend the existing ‘vocational’ diplomas with three ‘academic’ diplomas, including one called ‘languages and international communication’. This included a serious amount of elementary linguistics, largely contributed by the EC. Unfortunately, the new government has abandoned these three diplomas, but the specific content (the ‘main learning’), including the linguistics, may become available to schools in some other form. We live in hope.

  1. Meeting at RCEAL, University of Cambridge, November 2009 about linguistics in schools

Members of the EC helped to organise a meeting in Cambridge to discuss various possibilities for increasing collaboration between linguists in HEIs and school teachers who want to introduce more linguistics into their teaching. 25 delegates attended this meeting. Presentations were on the following topics:

  • The educational and political context (Dick Hudson, UCL)
  • Language in the GCSE English curriculum: lessons from a university/school collaboration (Emma Moore, Sheffield)
  • Linguistics: the language detective course at Villiers Park (Billy Clark, Middlesex and Graeme Trousdale, Edinburgh)
  • Linguistics at a distance: developing an online course on language for teachers (Kevin Watson, Lancaster)
  • Linguistics and modern foreign languages at schools and university (Ros Mitchell, Southampton)
  • The school teacher’s perspective (Gabrielle Jones, Leyton 6th form college, London)
  • The Linguistics Olympiad (Harold Somers and Cara Greene, Dublin City)
  • The Diploma in Languages and International Communication: Background, vision and interface with linguistics (Terry Lamb, Sheffield)

All of the delegates found this to be a positive and productive meeting. The organisers were grateful to RCEAL for hosting the event, and to LLAS subject centre for financial support to cover travel expenses for those presenting.

  1. Report on grammatical knowledge of beginning undergraduate students

Dick Hudson undertook a small research project which replicated a study of Aston (foreign language) & UCL (linguistics) students that he had carried out with Tom Bloor in 1986. The current study was carried out with Charles Alderson, who used the 1986 instrument to collect data in 1992 and 1994 in Lancaster. In the present study, the same instrument was sent to colleagues in linguistics departments across the UK. Answers were received from about a dozen university departments. Of those who did answer, results were typically poor. A general conclusion based on the results of the study was that adding grammar to the curriculum has had little effect on improving metalinguistic knowledge. The results are available at