school_kids

PUPILS NEED LESSONS IN HOW TO SPEAK PROPERLY

Children should be taught to speak more formally in class to improve their written work, according to new research.

Teachers need to do more work to improve children's vocabulary and make it clear when the use of slang and colloquialisms are not acceptable, academics have found.

The study from Exeter University, which analysed pupils' writing, discovered that whilst more able writers composed sentences in standard English, weaker writers tended to replicate patterns found in speech.

Researchers concluded that the more opportunities children had in class for developing their speech and distinguishing between styles of language, the better their writing would become.

The study comes in the wake of growing recognition that the school curriculum has neglected the development of children's speech.

The Government's Rose Review, published in May, stressed the "central importance" of speaking and listening as part of literacy.

Critics claim that in some schools very young children are being taught to read and write before they can string a sentence together.

With older children, chief examiners have revealed a growing tendency for pupils to lapse into the vernacular in exams scripts, using slang and inappropriate expressions.

English literature A-level

"It's like, yea, Cleo is a player" – referring to Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra

"He's always spouting off" – referring to Orsino from Twelfth Night

"So anyway, Viola's had it with Olivia and is fuming with her." question on Twelfth Night

"Hamlet is a laid back mummy's boy who needs to move on."

GCSE English

"Heani referz 2 poetri as wen humn xperiens cumz 2 life" – an essay on Seamus Heaney's poem Digging

"I was well bored."

"f*** off"

Geography A-level

"There is more demand for consumer goods because more people want to buy stuff."

History A-level

"ToV" – pupil shorthand for the Treaty of Versailles

(Abridged from an article in the Daily Telegraph)