You might be interested in the history of the disappearance of grammar
teaching in England.  Andrew Wilkinson in 1964 was almost single-handedly
responsible for it, particularly the disappearance of grammar tests from
examination syllabuses and thus from English schools (Wilkinson, 1964).  One
of the inquiries he cites contained no attempts by the teachers to relate
the grammatical knowledge purveyed to the actual writing of sentences by the
pupils, and, in addition, the grammar taught was of a Latinate kind
(Macauley, 1947;  other similar accounts are those of Cawley, 1944, and
Skews, 1960).  Another piece of research (Harris, 1962) showed merely that,
if in one group formal grammar was related to composition only in technical
explanation of writing errors and that in another group grammatical forms
were always related to pupils¹ writing, the second group ultimately showed
better results (it worth noting that Harris¹s thesis was taken as an
authoritative anti-grammar guide by the official Bullock inquiry, 'A
Language for Life', 1976: 11.18, p. 170).

Furthermore, a third research inquiry Wilkinson quoted arrived at no
Œabsolute result¹ for the following reasons, first, that grammar was taught
more intensively in some schools, and, more significantly, that, not only
were the methods used critical in producing good results in composition, but
also that Œthe teacher¹s enthusiasm for the subject¹ had a marked effect
(Robinson, 1959: 65).   Wilkinson made no mention of this anomaly.  I think
it worthy of note here that, when, for inspection, I obtained this thesis
from Manchester through the Bodleian Library at Oxford, I found that those
who consulted it were supposed to fill in a form on the inside cover to
register their reading of it ‹ mine became the only name on the list.  David
Tomlinson (1994, 20) has been able to show that Wilkinson¹s own access to
Robinson¹s thesis was merely through a 700-word abstract.  And yet it is to
Wilkinson¹s NATE article of 1964 that the dismissal of grammar from all
English examination syllabuses and thus from English schools for nearly
fifty years -- and counting -- can be plausibly attributed!

It is extraordinarily interesting from a historical point of view how three
research items that largely examined the results of some bad grammar
teaching led to the wholesale banishment of grammar from the curriculum and,
with immediate practical results, examination syllabuses throughout the
country.  One can perhaps attribute it to the power of the neo-romantic
ideology common in the sixties (it described itself as Œchild-centred¹)
which took as a sine qua non that anything which they considered smacked of
methodical  instruction was manifestly suspect as authoritarian.  In
particular, it was believed that grammar was being used as one filter among
many to deny working-class children social mobility, when the opposite was
the case since it empowered them.  It has, very recently, been established
that social mobility, for various reasons, has declined in England,
intensifying the class division between the underclass and the rest.


References:

Bullock, Alan (1976) A Language for Life.  London:  Her Majesty's Stationery
Office.

Cawley, Frank (1944) The Difficulty of English Grammar for Pupils of
Secondary School Age. M. Ed. Thesis, University of Manchester.

Harris, R. J.  (1962) An experimental inquiry into the functions and value
of formal grammar in the teaching of English, with special reference to the
teaching of correct written English to children aged twelve to fourteen.
Ph.D. thesis, University of London.

Macauley, W. J. (1947)  ŒThe difficulty of grammar¹, British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 17: 153-62.

Robinson. Nora (1959).  The Relation between Knowledge of English Grammar
and Ability in English Composition.  M. Ed. Thesis, University of
Manchester.

Skews, D. M. (1960) ŒGrammar: Dry bones¹, The Use of English, 9, 163-5.

Tomlinson, David (1994) ŒErrors in the research into the effectiveness of
grammar teaching¹, English in Education, 28:1.

Wilkinson, Andrew M. (1964) ŒResearch on formal grammar¹, National
Association of Teachers of English Bulletin, 1:2.


Edmond



Dr. Edmond Wright
3 Boathouse Court
Trafalgar Road
Cambridge
CB4 1DU
England

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Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/
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