Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

As do I, mick! Well put!

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

Yes, it is a great idea to revert to the basics. Trouble is, many of today's teachers were never taught how grammar works, so how can they teach it?

Grammar is not an easy thing to teach - I only began to understand it all when I did Latin. (After Latin grammar , English grammar seems so easy) Of course, it could have been that the Latin teacher was a good teacher.

I went to a typical working class grammar school in industrial West Yorkshire, but when I look at education today, I realise that I was very lucky, because they not only taught basic subjects well, they also taught us to think, analyse and question everything.

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

Whilst I think spelling should be taught, and grammar to a certain extent, times have moved on and there are probably more important things for our kids to be concentrating on. No school would think copperplate writing was an important skill these days, but computer skills are essential.

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

I just want the children to know how to write good English. I want them to understand that 'I could of' and 'between you and I' and plurals using apostrophes, such as 'mango's, ego's' are very bad English, and to understand why.

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

Whilst it is irritating, language changes, so you are fighting a losing battle, imo, even the young Royals speak in the vernacular these days. The Britain of Elizabeth 1 would have difficulty understanding even the so called, 'Queens's English' of today!

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

I agree, computer knowledge is important in todays world, but decent handwriting is important too; room for both IMO. And yes, Joan, I found Latin most helpful; pity it's no longer considered part of a well rounded education. Good examples of misused language and apostrophes there; really grates seeing those. And don't get me started on current pronounciations: everyone on TV seems to say ARtic and FebYOOary; how can you expect kids to know the right way to say them when that's what they hear constantly?! It may be a losing battle, but I'm going down fighting the degradation of our language. Bah humbug!!

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

Pronunciation and new words are one thing, getting the grammar wrong is another thing all together. I'm happy with new words and new usages for old ones, such as mouse and troll in the computer world. Pronunciation will always change, I'm afraid. But grammar is the skeleton of the language, its framework. We should understand it and get it right. Sure, we can cope without it, just like you can cope with driving a car without the slightest understanding about how it works. But when something goes wrong, when you don't understand something, then that's when you get into bother.

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

Aaghgh - "could of" instead of "could have" is one of the things that really gets my goat. The other one that really annoys me (and you can hear supposedly articulate journalists using it on TV all the time) is the use of "incidence" (or worse "incidences") when they mean "incidents."

Mick

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

I think that you are completely wrong on this one Dancingsky. All we seem to have theses days are excuses and apologists for poor teaching. As is well known, a comma in the wrong place can completely change the meaning of a sentence. Good basic grammar, along with good basic mathematics (including times tables) is paramount to everyone`s education.
As for the "young Royals", they are an absolute disgrace to their education and should be up there setting an example, not dumbing down to the lowest common denominator, if they even know what that is!

Re: Yey! Spelling and Grammar are going to be taught again.

At least the young royals don't speak in the stilted, unnatural way in which Elizabeth still speaks, which is just as common actually.