Do schools still

[madmaggot]

............... teach English Language as a subject?

I've noticed more and more recently that people don't seem to know the difference between:

Your - belonging to you
You're - you are

Is there a teacher who can tell me why this isn't considered important anymore?

[sassy53]

I work at a primary school (year 6) age 10/11 and we certainly try to make them aware of all these words, homophones, as it makes a huge difference to their writing. I cannot tell you if English Language (grammar) is taught separately at secondary level. I still have difficulty accepting that now it is considered perfectly legitimate to start a sentence with 'because' something that in my old fashioned English Language lessons during the 1960's was considered inappropriate!!

[Lil O'lady]

Possibly the position we're looking at is that the internet's growth means far more people are writing than was the case for decades, and that this reveals the simple fact that most people just don't understand complex written English grammar. Thye have good speaking skills and understand what they and others are saying and meaning, but the ins and outs of correct positioning of apostrophes is just a bit hit n miss. And then there's text speak....

[Lil O'lady]

To answer sassy's query, yes, grammar skills are taught at secondary school, which just goes to show how little impact it all makes after a certain point.

[madmaggot]

Hmm, it just makes it so difficult to read fluently when there are words included that just don't make sense, causing the reader to re-scan the sentence.

[sophie_1003]

I'm currently training to be a teacher and textbooks tend to emphasise the creativity in children's writing rather than the spelling. I don't necessarily completely agree with this but can see where the idea comes from.

[vulcan]

I wonder if the people who emphasise creativity rather than spelling have ever completed a crossword.

[tamborine]

'cause the teachers dont do language and grammar schools phased out.

[bird_81]

I teach a year 4 class and although the emphasis is on the speaking and imaginative writing, I make sure that I teach at least one 'grammar' lesson a week and embed grammer into each lesson. It is important, and most teachers should teach this.

[snorpah]

I work in a school and in most exams , grammer and spelling only give you a certain amount of marks (as little as 5 in some cases).