English in the News
Below is a selection of articles which are archived online and may be of interest to NATE members. If you know of others please let us know. Keep up to date with our Twitter feed, too.
Showing 761-780 of 1389Sort by: Date Title Publication
- Schools losing confidence in Sats - The Guardian, Tuesday April 8, 2008
Schools have requested re-marks for more than 100,000 English test papers over the past three years, according to new figures which suggest that some schools are rapidly losing confidence in the government's national testing system.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Punctuation is essential. Period - The Independent, Monday April 7, 2008
Sir: It's a pity I've retired from my job teaching A-Level English, because I would have loved to have seen what my students made of the pieces by Philip Hensher and Bethan Marshall. [And other letters in response to the Independent's articles]Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - The semicolon - it's a mark of two halves - The Guardian, Saturday April 5, 2008
The semicolon does not deserve such agonised and pretentious debate [and other letters on punctuation]Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Punctuation: does it matter? - The Independent, Friday April 4, 2008
In France, they complain that English writing style has killed the semi-colon; it’s too direct, they say. Two writers join a debate that has brought grammarians to a full stopLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - The end of the line? - The Guardian, Friday April 4, 2008
An unlikely row has erupted in France over suggestions that the semicolon's days are numbered; worse, the growing influence of English is apparently to blame. Jon Henley reports on the uncertain fate of this most subtle and misused of punctuation marks. Aida Edemariam discovers which writers love it - and which would be glad to see it disappearLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Wanted: punctuality, literacy and numeracy - The Guardian, Thursday April 3, 2008
Punctuality, literacy, numeracy and enthusiasm are the four key requirements of any young person seeking their first job. This by no means startling verdict has been confirmed once again in new research into the skills that employers really want.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - A tonic for the phonics queen - The Guardian, Tuesday April 1, 2008
In the reading wars, Ruth Miskin is riding high as her method for learning to read takes centre stage Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Celebrity scandal and Anne Frank: the reading diary of British teenagers - The Guardian, Thursday March 27, 2008
Shakespeare and homework lose out as internet vies with books and magazines for attention of young readers Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Let's have maiden sonnets instead of maiden speeches - The Guardian, Tuesday March 25, 2008
Now that the "man who wasn't Blair" storm has disappeared back into the rhyming teacup it came from, maybe it's time to consider the wider question of politicians and their attitude to poetry. The offending poem was seen as the equivalent of a rude chant on the terraces or a bit of graffiti on a toilet wall; it filled a few column inches and got some people talking and some others having a go at writing something themselves, but in the end it was seen as essentially frivolous, a diversion from whatever the real business of government is. What a lot of people failed to register is that poetry business is the real business, and not just for poets but for legislators too, writes Ian McMillanLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Teachers criticise over-testing - BBC, Monday March 24, 2008
UK tests and league tables have made children the unhappiest in the western world, teachers have claimed.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - He died from a love of poetry - The Guardian, Tuesday March 18, 2008
Poets, by tradition, imagine themselves likely to die young. But that's not a matter of imagination, says Associate Professor James C Kaufman, of California State University at San Bernardino. It's a simple fact.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Hundreds of schools make the news - BBC, Thursday March 13, 2008
Schools across the UK are creating their own news reports and broadcasting them with the help of the BBC.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - School syllabuses should not be at the mercy of opinionated pupils - The Guardian, Wednesday March 5, 2008
Shakespeare's portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice has long been the subject of debate. Did it prove the playwright to be antisemitic? Nine pupils at the Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls' School in north London clearly thought so. They did something about it: refused to write their exam on Shakespeare, thereby incurring zero marks. Their act of rebellion troubled me [writes Marcel Berlins]Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Succumbing to inarticulacy is a blight on all our lives - The Guardian, Tuesday March 4, 2008
Clear communication is vital for social progress, yet the world of words has shrunk to fit minds instead of stretch themLink broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Teach children Shakespeare at four, says RSC - The Guardian, Monday March 3, 2008
Shakespeare should be taught to children as young as four, before they have become intimidated by the language, the Royal Shakespeare Company will say today. Introducing the works of Shakespeare to teenagers is too late, the RSC will argue.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Pupils urged to embrace the Bard - BBC, Monday March 3, 2008
A campaign has started to encourage school children to "embrace the Bard" and bring William Shakespeare's plays to life in the classroom.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Dame's fears for 'adult' children - BBC, Monday March 3, 2008
Children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has expressed concern that youngsters are growing up too quickly.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Jewish pupils boycott exam in Shylock protest - The Independent, Saturday March 1, 2008
Teenagers at a Jewish comprehensive school have refused to sit a Shakespeare test because they believe the Bard is anti-Semitic. ... As a result, they were stripped of their marks for the English national curriculum test for 14-year-olds – and their school plummeted from top of the league tables to 274th.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Underfunded primary schools fail to teach basic literacy, says key review - The Guardian, Friday February 29, 2008
The government should increase primary school budgets to match those in secondary schools to pay for specialist teachers to tackle illiteracy, experts say. The multibillion pound investment in education since 1997 has been undermined by a failure to teach pupils the basics by the time they are 11, according to the biggest review of primary education in 40 years.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here - Children's mags 'damage writing' - BBC, Thursday February 28, 2008
Lightweight fiction and magazines could be damaging children's ability to write good English, a government report says.Link broken or innaccurate? Please report here