Grammar for Writing: Shaping Policy and Practice

写作语法？作为拟议项目基础的研究是在一个有争议的，政治化的历史中进行的。在60年代，英语国家普遍放弃了语法教学，理由是它对儿童的语言能力或写作能力没有任何影响。研究往往集中在语法的外显学习是否有利于儿童的写作，结果似乎是决定性的负面影响。事实上，Hillocks和Smith（1991）认为，“近90年的研究一直表明，学校语法教学对学生的影响很小或没有影响。当然，在过去的50年里，一系列强有力的评论（例如Braddock et al 1963; Elley et al 1975; Hillocks 1986; Andrews et al 2006）得出结论，语法教学对写作发展没有好处。然而，这些评论所代表的几乎所有研究都存在一个主要困难。这些研究反复调查各种形式的孤立语法教学，如学习转换语法或分析句子，是否能提高写作水平。与此相反，我们的研究避开了脱离语境的语法教学。相反，干预教学材料在学习的相关点以嵌入式和有目的的方式提请注意写作语法。通过这种方式，年轻作家被介绍给我们所谓的“无限可能的剧目”，明确地向他们展示了如何塑造句子或文本的不同方式，以及如何选择不同的单词可以产生不同的意义。这种方法的目标是支持作者控制和拥有他们撰写的文本，做出选择，使他们能够在写作中表达自己的意见，并塑造文本，以满足作者的修辞目标。我们认为这是帮助作家成为文本的设计师，理解文本的经纬，它的纹理和细微差别，并能够在写作过程中将创造性和批判性思维联合收割机结合起来。这种干预的强烈的积极影响使这项研究能够提供一个新的理论的语法和写作的关系。拟议的项目旨在建立在成功的这种方法在三个显着的方式。首先，该项目将寻求通过研究行动伙伴关系与少数英语系合作，以探索研究在这些系的课堂实践中的影响，从而建立研究与实践的接口。这些合作的重点将是试验成功的干预教学法，解决教学法是否可以同样成功的较弱的作家，并提出有关干预的关键问题。这方面的项目将解决的问题：什么是主要的主题，问题和关注的专业人士讨论的作用，这项研究表明语法可以发挥在写作教学法？第二，该项目将通过举行全国利益攸关方会议，寻求更广泛的国家影响，将从业人员，研究人员，顾问，教师教育工作者，检查员和政策制定者聚集在一起，就我们的研究的政策和实践影响进行批判性讨论。这将进一步参考关于这一问题的四种国际观点，并将导致就进一步行动的建议作出谈判决定。该项目的这一方面将解决这样一个问题：让专业人员和决策者参与这项研究的政策影响的机会和障碍是什么？第三，项目团队将借鉴干预措施的成功教学法，并参考研究行动伙伴关系的成果，开发一套商业教学资源，为英语教师提供最大限度的机会。

The Grammar for Writing? study which forms the foundation for the proposed project is located within a contested, politicised history. Grammar teaching was generally abandoned in Anglophone countries in the 60s on the grounds that it made no difference to children's language capacities or writing abilities. Research has tended to focus on whether explicit learning of grammar benefits children's writing and the results appear to be conclusively negative. Indeed, Hillocks and Smith (1991) argue that 'research over a period of nearly 90 years has consistently shown that the teaching of school grammar has little or no effect on students.' Certainly, a string of robust reviews in the past 50 years (eg Braddock et al 1963; Elley et al 1975; Hillocks 1986; Andrews et al 2006) have concluded that teaching grammar is of no benefit in supporting writing development. There is, however, a major difficulty with almost all of the research that these reviews represent. The studies repeatedly investigate whether various forms of isolated grammar teaching, such as learning transformational grammar, or parsing sentences, improves writing. In contrast, our study has eschewed decontextualised teaching of grammar. Instead, the intervention teaching materials draw attention to the grammar of writing in an embedded and purposeful way at relevant points in the learning. In this way, young writers were introduced to what we have called 'a repertoire of infinite possibilities', explicitly showing them how different ways of shaping sentences or texts, and how different choices of words can generate different possibilities for meaning-making. The goal of such an approach is to support writers in taking control and ownership of the texts they compose, making choices which enable them to voice themselves in their writing, and to shape texts to meet the writer's rhetorical goals. We think of this as helping writers to become designers of text, understanding the warp and the weft of text, its textures and nuances, and able to combine both creative and critical thinking in the process of composition. The strongly positive effect of this intervention has enabled the study to offer a new theory of the grammar-writing relationship.The proposed project seeks to build on the success of this approach in three significant ways. Firstly, the project will seek to bridge the research-practice interface by working collaboratively, through Research Action Partnerships, with a small number of English departments to explore the implications of the research in the classroom practice of these departments. The focus of these collaborations will be on trialling the successful intervention pedagogy, on addressing whether the pedagogy can be equally successful for weaker writers, and on raising critical questions about the intervention. This aspect of the project will address the question: What are the main themes, issues and concerns in professionals' discussion of the role that this research suggests grammar can play in a pedagogy of writing? Secondly, the project will seek for broader national impact through the holding of a National Stakeholders Conference, bringing together practitioners, researchers, advisors, teacher educators, inspectors and policy-makers to engage in critical discussion about the policy and practice implications of our research. This will be further informed by a set of four international perspectives on the issue and will lead to negotiated decisions about recommendations for further action. This aspect of the project will address the question: What are the opportunities and barriers to engaging professionals and policymakers in the policy implications of this research?Thirdly, the project team will develop a set of commercial teaching resources, drawing on the successful pedagogy of the intervention, and informed by the outcomes of the Research Action Partnerships, to generate maximum access for English teachers.