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 pupilsı writing, the second group ultimately showed better results (it worth noting that Harrisıs 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 absolute resultı 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 the teacherıs enthusiasm for the subjectı 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 Wilkinsonıs own access to Robinsonıs thesis was merely through a 700-word abstract. And yet it is to Wilkinsonıs 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 child-centredı) 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) The difficulty of grammarı, 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) Grammar: Dry bonesı, The Use of English, 9, 163-5. Tomlinson, David (1994) Errors in the research into the effectiveness of grammar teachingı, English in Education, 28:1. Wilkinson, Andrew M. (1964) Research on formal grammarı, National Association of Teachers of English Bulletin, 1:2. Edmond Dr. Edmond Wright 3 Boathouse Court Trafalgar Road Cambridge CB4 1DU England Email: [log in to unmask] Website: http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/elw33/ Phone [00 44] (0)1223 350256 To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/