Geoff Barton

In the UK, Geoff Barton, a secondary school teacher with a training in linguistic, reported (1998) that some of his weakest students benefit 'dramatically' from an exploration of simple compound and complex sentence types.

Mary Mason

Mary Mason, a linguistically qualified teacher, designed a complete 3 year course in academic language for 12 to 14 year olds which now have been taught over a number of years in several schools. The course improved writing skills dramatically.

So which grammar is best?

Hudson points out that studies regarding grammar have explored three types of grammar, the traditional grammar, transformational grammar and systematic grammar. Fundamentally it still remains unclear as to which form of grammar is best. Many different researches have suggested their own opinions regarding this but it still remains debatable and open to scrutiny. So with regards to the research material available regarding the affects of grammar on the writing of children we can safely say that the vast majority of such material is clearly indicative that some sort of grammar in fact benefits the writings of children.

Looking at the research evidence it seem that the actual content of old fashioned grammar and the method of teaching was probably the main problem why many studies that were undertaken by academics concluded that grammar does not benefit language and writing skills.

From the above it can be said that although there is a disagreement as to which type of grammar is advantageous for children in enabling them to write English but fundamentally the studies show that there is a majority thinking that some sort of grammar is much better than none.

An observation

After having completed my secondary education in a comprehensive school with no knowledge of grammar what so ever I, like many other 16-17 year olds embarked upon studying at the internationally acclaimed seat of learning for traditional Islamic theology and classical Arabic, Darul Uloom al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah, Bury.