Useless grammar
Sir: Mr Baker seems unaware of what has been official policy on the teaching of English grammar over a period of rather longer than the 20 years he mentions (Valeries Grove, 'From grammar to glamour', 30 August).
Twenty-five years ago, having gone straight into teaching from university, I was met during my first term with a full-blown general inspection of our school. In the presence of the H.M.I. (her name was Lady Helen Asquith) I gave what I thought was an interesting and exhaustive lesson on prepositions.
`And what use do you think all that was?' she asked with particular disdain, proceeding to inform me that the teaching of formal grammar was held to have no bearings on the pupils' further powers of expression. Policy was to discourage it and to rely upon the child's instinctive grasp of the rules of language.
Probably very few teaching English to- day have themselves been taught formal grammar, except perhaps in the study of foreign languages.
Ann Dowling
245 Branlingham Road, Manchester
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