KS3 English: Language and Grammar – Building Complex Sentences

Overview by Barbara Bleiman

This programme offers strategies for focusing on sentence level grammar and embedding it in the context of real texts and pupils’ own writing. After an introductory lesson on one aspect of sentence structure, conditional clauses, the programme explores three possible ways of developing the work, one of which, a picture book activity, is shown in action in the classroom.

The programme will help teachers to consider some of the practical issues around teaching grammar and offer strategies that are contextualised, memorable and illuminating for pupils.

Making connections – Grammar and meaning (English 21 Think Paper)

Debra Myhill

http://www.qca.org.uk/12376.html

A think piece by Debra Myhill, exploring the usefulness of grammar teaching to help pupils to move from informal to formal writing. She introduces an idea called The Ladder of Formality, which makes explicit the ways in which writers step up from informal to informal language, through changes in vocabulary and grammar. This would support the kind of work shown in the programme, where pupils try to adapt their language for different contexts and audiences

Summary of research: The effect of grammar teaching (syntax) in English on five- to 16-year-olds' accuracy and quality in written composition Richard Andrews, York University 2005

http://eppi.ioe.ac.uk/EPPIWeb/home.aspx?page=/reel/review_groups/english/review_six_abstract.htm

This recent project at York University investigated whether grammar teaching made a difference to pupil writing. The conclusions were sceptical. What did emerge, however, was that work on sentence combining seemed to help students to write in more sophisticated and confident ways. A focus on sentence combining might be one way of developing the work demonstrated in the programme

UCL Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics

http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/writing.htm

This section of the UCL Dept of Phonics and Linguistics website includes a review of the research evidence on grammar and writing. It hasn’t been updated to include some of the most recent research but nevertheless explores some of the key debates about the usefulness of teaching grammar