[Xmca-l] Re: "English" as a school subject

[Shirley Franklin]

In England, what is meant by "English" in primary schools tends to be rather dreadful non contextualised "Literacy" Skills, while in secondary it becomes more literature-focused with some language. 
But the formal assessment assumes it's the same throughout and inspectors and Government wonder why kids "slip backwards" in secondary English achievements!

Shows the idiocy of isolated literacy teaching and of testing. 

Shirley 
Sent from my iPhone

> On 16 Aug 2016, at 11:31, Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Peter,
> 
> I have always heard colloquially that English became a subject first in
> India where imperial government officials feared their children were being
> deanglicized by the locals. No idea if it's true.
> 
> I also think English as a subject is evolving with the rise of disciplinary
> literacies as a lens. It is no longer cast as the class where you learn to
> read and write.
> 
> Greg
> 
>> On Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:26 AM Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi, I'm writing mainly to my colleagues who are familiar with public
>> school, pre-university (what we call K-12 in the US) education systems,
>> with a question.
>> 
>> In English-speaking nations, there is a school subject called "English"
>> that involves the study of literature (much from English-speaking authors,
>> rather than "world literature" which may have its own separate course),
>> writing (or now, multimodal composing), and language study (of the English
>> language, often in the form of grammar instruction). This subject is not
>> ESL, EFL, TESOL, or other way of describing learning the language of
>> English by speakers of other languages.
>> 
>> My question: I know that in Russia there are school subjects of Russian
>> literature and language; in the Netherlands there is the following:
>> The Study Dutch Language & Literature (Dutch: Nederlandse Taal- en
>> Letterkunde) can be found at each Dutch university. Formerly you studied
>> linguistics and literature, from about 1975 a third component was
>> introduced: Taalbeheersing (Dutch for language skills, especially writing
>> and argumentation). Nowadays the studies have new names, like Dutch
>> Language and culture
>> 
>> Do other nations dedicate a school subject to this discipline (literature,
>> writing, language study in L1 and generally nationalistic in curriculum)?
>> If so, what is it called, and what does it comprise?
>> 
>> Thx,Peter
>> 
>>