An interesting article that raises some important issues. I comprehend the old idea that 'everybody is a teacher of English', but I assert that it would be one hell of a good start if the subject called "English" actually taught English. Currently there is a near nil emphasis on being able to string a sentence together let alone write a little composition. Naturally spelling and Grammar are non existent.
In case anyone should think that I am being unfair to "English" and it's experts I quote from The Weekend Australian of 14/2/10. The article talked about a 'summer school program' in Queensland for children in Years 5 and 7 who are below the minimum literacy standards. What "help" do these poor little mites get? "the summer schools literacy emphasis is on discussing the meanings of texts and on making judgements about topic sentences and word choices rather than on coding and decoding". There is also the usual jibbering about 'how to evaluate texts'. I read that stuff and decided that there were only two possibilities: either they are insane or I am. Or both I suppose!

Please bear in mind that in Queensland at least a Secondary student never writes an 'essay' or anything else. From the start of Year 8 to the end of Year 12 it is just one long string of 'assignments' where the trick (accepted by all the sensible students) is 'find out what the teacher wants you to say - and say it.

Where this article is good is that it appears to get away from the "English" that goes on in our schools. Even better is the implication that the National syllabus would be specific in what is to be taught. That is a big advance. One great issue that will have to be faced in ALL subjects is that assesment systems will have to be common. That is essential.

Anyway, thanks for the article. It is a move in the direction of sanity.

English teachers should teach the English the other subject disciplines need to use. That includes grammar, spelling, sentence writing, etc. They should also have an interest in the books.

That is far removed from what they now do in secondary schools.

In May 2007, an article in the Australian Journal of Teacher Education concluded that “the teaching of literacy is the responsibility of all secondary teachers across the curriculum”.

This is rhetoric, produced by the skilled literary set, but it is nonsense.
A maths teacher's job is to convey the wonder of the abstract! Some students will get it.
An Environmental Studies teacher has the purpose of conveying the interconnectness of life. Some students will respect it.

Neither teacher has a responsibility to be a remedial language teacher. In fact literacy and numeracy are fundamental skills, that should have been properly acquired at Primary School.
A secondary education requires these building blocks as a pre-requisite base to build more advanced learning and knowledge. (And more advanced again at the next step of tertiary).

To ascribe to the Australian Journal of Teacher Education's dictum, is merely to divert one's energies into producing in year 12 students, the abilities of competent primary school children.

When education is overseen by nannies, P6 are indulged as if babies, and P12 are treated like little children and have the literacy skills to match.

I'm bewildered at how poorly equipped youngsters are today to analyze their own English language. Grammars differ hugely between languages - indeed the very concept of what is a "part of speech" is not universal. An adjective in English might be a noun in Japanese or a verbal phrase in Chinese. 'And' and ‘to be’ might not be used in (say) Chinese where English would use them. Russian not only inflects adjectives and nouns but divides verbs into 'process' (imperfective) or 'result' (perfective. Word order differs bizarrely between languages (in Japanese, “My car is next to the station” comes out something like “Station-of vicinity-in I-of car is”). English has about 15 verb tenses, Indonesian none (or, I suppose, one)!

That being said, "An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him; The moment he talks, he makes some other Englishman despise him." This applies both to the spoken word and the written word, INCLUDING SPELLING. Everyone now applies for a job in writing; and most jobs require the reading and analysis of words and written response to them.

The language keeps changing too. Not just through the permeation of American styles (what's your ADDress, for example), but through loss of inflections ("For we Australians ...." - substandard or the future now?) and through the swamping of common-register words by bureaucratic and managerialist jargon (when was the last time you heard anyone simply USE something, and not utilize it?)

I'd like to see English teachers explain the structure of our language, and for heaven's sake get away from the "critical literacy" nonsense of deconstructing everything in terms of tired old shibboleths. Let students read and critique with spontaneity and for the sheer uninhibited joy of it! Study of literature is an important part of English teaching; it's a window on the soul of individuals and the culture. It's essential to cultural literacy, but it should be FUN!

I certainly don’t regret doing parsing at school in the ‘50s, and critiquing Shakespeare and Hardy in the '60s from the level of my own limited life experience, without "critical literacy" rubbish!

The problem lies in the lack of English language teaching in the past forty years... where are the teachers who actually learned grammar, including punctuation,sentence structure,clause and kind and all the other wonderful aspects of our language that gave children a real control on the manner in which they read and wrote?

When does a paragraph begin and end?
Where does the comma go?