Should we insist on ‘Standard English’ in schools?

I chaired a lively panel discussion on oracy at the Festival of Education last month. Panellists were asked to give their opinions on the learning and teaching of ‘Standard English’ in classrooms and whether ‘speaking properly’ is a desirable educational goal. As you might expect, the panellists disagreed strongly.

Professor Rob Drummond, a specialist in sociolinguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of You’re All Talk: why we are what we speak, vigorously denied that spoken ‘Standard English’ even exists. “What is it, and who speaks it? I’d love to know,” he said.

Drummond encouraged teachers to prioritise socially productive talk in the classroom, embracing linguistic diversity, code-switching and varied repertoires because young people’s identities require a complex understanding of the relationship between talk and lived experience.

For example, people might look to him as a paragon of ‘Standard English’ success; he’s a well-educated white male with several indicators of privilege. Yet ‘kind of’ and ‘you know’ punctuate his speech (the audience was invited to count how many times he used these words), just as ‘like’ punctuates the speech of younger people. If this isn’t ‘Standard English’, what is?

Qamar Shafiq, teacher of English and EAL/anti-racism coordinator at The de Ferrers Academy in Burton-Upon-Trent insists on Standard English in his classroom.

He believes that while there should be no elitism between different forms of English, Standard English serves an important function for academic success. This requires deliberate practice for proficiency and cannot be left to chance because students experiencing disadvantage would suffer the most.

Shafiq described his own experience of moving to England aged 6, speaking no English. He believes that his subsequent academic and professional success has been a direct result of his teachers correcting his errors, both written and verbal, including syntax and pronunciation. He emphasised to the audience that all good teachers correct their students.

I’m glad all these voices and more are being heard

Meanwhile Amanda Moorghen, Head of learning, impact and policy at Voice 21 (the national oracy charity), drew on research conducted in Voice 21 schools on oracy-centred approaches to vocabulary development, which mobilised teachers’ expertise in the ways language (including vocabulary) is used differently across subject areas.

This ‘disciplinary oracy’ (e.g. speaking like a scientist or speaking like an historian) offers a framework for teachers to decide when and why to guide young people in the use of technical language.

While Drummond acknowledged that the ‘languages of the disciplines’ are important, he denied that there was any ‘standard’ which could be applied in classroom contexts without negatively impacting already disadvantaged students.

To conclude the panel session, the panellists were asked to consider what the ramifications might be of insisting on ‘Standard English’ in schools.

Drawing in part on the work of Dr Ian Cushing, Drummond warned that this approach would damage young people’s sense of identity and their connection to local/regional communities, as well as perpetuating inequality for students whose accent, dialect and linguistic repertoires are considered ‘non-standard’.

Shafiq, as a classroom-based specialist, identified the realities of assessment. In his experience, to be able to write well, students need to be able to speak well. Students are perfectly capable of code-switching and Shafiq acknowledged that he would speak more informally to students in conversation around school than he would in his classroom.

For him, it’s about utilising Standard English for a purpose and within the right context. Attainment in national assessments is the currency for future success. Young people and their parents have expectations about what students will achieve beyond school and that teachers will help them to that success. Additional support for oracy would benefit these students.

Moorghen suggested a middle way: equipping young people to talk about talk. They should have at their disposal a range of ‘Englishes’, well-equipped to make and debate choices about how they speak.

We await the findings and recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England with interest, particularly in relation to the prioritisation (or not) of ‘Standard English’ in the classroom.

For my part, I’m glad all these voices and more are being heard. If anything should be standard, it is surely such open deliberation about the big decisions affecting education.