In the light of the Final assertions, the following implications for policy are proposed.
The findings suggested that a pupil’s declarative knowledge existed implicitly and intangibly (posited as non- verbalisable “sense”) as well as explicitly and tangibly (posited as verbalisable “meaning”). Consequently, verbal triggers and question-and-answer routines could create an impression of confident, competent
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declarative knowledge in the pupils. Therefore, it is argued that the SPaG test is too limited as an assessment tool (even for isolated, decontextualised declarative knowledge) as the conceptual nature of grammatical terminology cannot be revealed through verbal recall and reproduction alone (Final assertions 1 and 3). Furthermore, it is argued that the SPaG test promotes a conceptualisation of grammatical terminology as fixed in meaning and transferable to the pupils in pre-packaged, finished form. This is reinforced by Appendix 2 (DfE 2013a:73), which states that ‘All terms in bold should be understood with the meanings set out in the Glossary’. This implies there is one acceptable - and thereby accurate - meaning. It is argued that this perception of grammatical terminology threatens to reduce opportunities for pupil exploration and co- construction of meaning, which would better achieve deep-level conceptual learning over time (Final assertion 8).
While this is not to negate the value of a consistent and detailed glossary, it is argued that the pupils’ journey to grammatical conceptual understanding must be recognised as a developmental one in the same way as learning is assumed to be developmental in other areas of the curriculum (Final assertion 10). For this reason, this thesis posits that a more discerning list of grammatical terms would enable teachers and pupils to focus on fewer, more developmentally appropriate concepts over time, supported by deeper-level teacher/pupil assessment and differentiation (Final assertion 4) with diagnostic attention given to the nature of pupils’ spoken and written misconceptions and misunderstandings. Furthermore, in support of the pupils' developmental journey, it is suggested that a re-presentation of the glossary (e.g. as a network of key terms or definitional map) could be a valuable aid to primary teachers who are typically not linguists. While the ‘hyperlinks to other technical terms’ are intended to ‘help to define each other’ (DfE 2013a:80), the findings suggested that the use of semantic (rather than syntactic) relations between terms sometimes led to pupil misunderstandings. Thus, syntactic relations represented diagrammatically may be more helpful (Final assertion 5).
Despite signalling the importance of pupils’ development over time, it can be argued that the National Curriculum does not differentiate significantly enough between requirements for the youngest and the oldest pupils. For example, pupils in Year 1 (5/6-year-olds), like pupils in Years 5 and 6, are also required to ‘use the grammatical terminology…in discussing their writing’ (DfE 2013:25). However, if this type of complex, abstracted thinking is developmentally inappropriate, it threatens to absorb curriculum time in Key Stage 1 unnecessarily and at the expense of time for more meaningful teaching and learning of writing (Final assertion 11). The findings suggested that pupils in Years 5 and 6 found the transfer of grammatical terminology to the explicit discussion of their own writing very difficult – or, at least, too difficult to do so in unmediated ways (Final assertion 6).
Again, this has implications for the SPaG test which, as a form of high-stakes testing, potentially leads to a legitimisation of the perception that recall and repetition ‘over time’ will lead to readily accessible and applicable grammatical knowledge and understanding. This risks reducing pupils’ attentional capacity for thinking about meaning and effect at the point of application. While repetition and practice may indeed be a beneficial element of pedagogy related to grammatical terminology (as supported by the findings), a question
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of proportion needs to be considered: i.e. whether a disproportionate amount of time is being spent on remembering at the expense of other higher order intellectual processes that would better contribute to the development of conceptual understanding. This also has implications for the more generic process of change and the ways in which this is managed centrally in the future, in order to minimise any negative impact on the lives of pupils and teachers.
The findings suggest that the teaching and learning of grammatical terminology has implications for teachers’ professional development in three main areas. These are detailed as:
• A clearer explanation and/or justification of the intended purpose and value of grammatical terminology that will inform a professional debate leading to the articulation of the role and benefits of grammatical terminology - and equally its limitations - within the primary curriculum. While the inclusion of grammar in the curriculum is considered a very positive one, the absence of clarity around purpose and value threatens to limit teachers’ pedagogical decisions of how best to teach it and thereby potentially impact upon teachers’ (and pupils’) motivation for doing so (Final assertion 7).
• Increased opportunities for primary teachers to develop deeper or different level declarative knowledge (e.g. linked to English grammar, linguistics and/or pedagogical grammar) within a context of descriptive meaning-making approaches. This would inform teacher assessment methods and the nature and specificity of the teachers’ insights and conclusions for planning of future teaching and learning (Final assertion 2).
• Increased opportunities for primary teachers to develop and contribute to research-informed practice aimed at increasing pupils’ capacity to engage with grammar through writing and reading in confident and creative ways. In particular, attention should be given to the interface between
grammatical terminology per se and grammatical terminology in use: i.e. how grammatical
terminology enables texts to be meaningfully thought about, discussed and created with clarity, economy, control and intent. While national policy identifies explicit knowledge of grammar as being ‘very important, as it gives us more conscious control and choice in our language’ (DfE 2013:74), it offers very little pedagogical guidance beyond it being: ‘best achieved … within the teaching of reading, writing and speaking’ (DfE 2013:ibid). Professional development should address how this integration within teaching to enable ‘teacher creativity’ and the construction of ‘exciting lessons’ could be achieved (DfE 2013a:64). It should explore alternatives to the “teach, practise, apply” approach advocated by the National Curriculum. This thesis posits that this should be through the use of mediated remembering to support conceptual development (Final assertions 9 and 12) (Model 1), which, as a concept, can be applied to different pedagogical approaches.
The final assertions of this thesis are embedded in the two models presented as: (i) Model 1: a conceptual model and (ii) Model 2: a pedagogical model for the teaching and learning of grammatical terminology. These
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models represent the main contribution of this thesis to knowledge. Specifically, they are intended to contribute to the developing theoretical, conceptual and pedagogical understandings of grammatical terminology in the primary curriculum, potentially enabling teachers to realise the requirements of the National Curriculum in increasingly meaningful ways. In terms of future possibilities, they are proposed as the beginnings of a primary teachers’ toolkit to be developed into a Continuing Professional Development programme. Furthermore, in returning to the ‘nature of the problem: a personal reflection’ in Section 1.1, there is also a potential for a toolkit for work with students as part of Initial Teacher Education.
While it is believed that there is flexibility and congruence enough within the current National Curriculum to support a descriptive, meaning-oriented approach to grammatical terminology, the SPaG test remains more of a challenge. The findings suggested there was a need to better support pupils cognitively in recalling an abstraction at the point of application, potentially compromising their attention to meaning and effect in texts (Final assertions 6, 11 and 12). Although repetition and practice were positively perceived by pupils and teachers, it seemed that grammatical terminology was viewed as something to be rotely learned over time (albeit terminology was being framed as the recall and reproduction of fixed knowledge). The extent to which grammatical terminology, as the complex and abstract set of concepts that it is, can be made available to primary pupils for their automatic access and application is not known. Thus, the SPaG test seems to risk either increasing the cognitive load at the point of application through contextualised teaching or decreasing meaningful learning at the point of demonstration through decontextualised exercises and testing. As part of a teachers’ toolkit, Model 1 has the potential to address these issues conceptually; Model 2 to address the issues pedagogically.
Of course, it could be that grammatical terminology per se and its application as grammatical terminology in
use are now effectively embedded in schools, having developed either because of or in spite of teaching and
learning over time. Within the study, one teacher noted: ‘At the beginning of the term, we couldn’t even talk about a clause…this class have come quite a long way in the year’. Perhaps, as the teachers anticipated, grammatical terminology now exists as ‘second nature’ with the pupils and their teachers being able ‘to talk about things’ (Teacher). However, returning to the opening paragraph of this section, the findings also suggested that grammatical terminology can be deceiving, with complex conceptual understanding being masked by the confident recall of verbal definitional forms. This may mean that application to texts, particularly writing, is still highly problematic. The quality of pupils’ conceptual development over time both as
grammatical terminology per se and grammatical terminology in use remains a significant area for future
research.