FOREWORD


‘ENGLISH IS AN ENJOYABLE, LIFE-CHANGING, DYNAMIC AND EMANCIPATORY SUBJECT’


As Professor Andy Goodwyn celebrates the joy of teaching and learning English, he urges practitioners to resist external pressures to diminish their subject, which could deter people from studying English for a degree or to teach it.


H


ere is a remarkable and inspiring story, courtesy of the BBC: ‘South Africa teacher wins award for remarkable results despite


no textbooks’. “A teacher in a poverty-stricken area of rural Mpumalanga in South Africa has won a prestigious teaching award after her students achieved a pass rate of over 90 per cent, despite the class having access to only one textbook. Thuli Shongwe teaches English to pupils aged 17-18 at the Mandlesive High School, where she regularly has as many as 70 students in her classroom. “The Stella Clark Teachers’ Award


from the University of Cape Town acknowledges the work of exceptional teachers — the unsung heroes who go beyond the call of duty to motivate and inspire pupils. Thuli tells Newsday that ‘my cell phone is my only resource and we rely on photocopies because we don’t have textbooks’.” Our situation in England is very challenging yet, while it is not as desperate as Thuli’s, the spirit infusing her work infuses all good English teaching. It is not a trivial point to say that, although we certainly do have text books and other resources, they are never the driver of the teaching. English teachers are magpies and pick up all kinds of resources in the spirit of bricolage and their individuality. Despite endless attempts to control and constrain English through official structures (e.g. the National Curriculum) or high stakes assessment regimes (e.g. Key stage tests, GCSE and A Level specifications), it remains the ‘Quicksilver subject’. This characterisation by John Dixon in 1975 has stood the test of time. Mercury is a beautiful metal. It’s liquid at


room temperature, and therefore capable of infinite subtle movement, filling the space it’s allowed to enter. The other connection with Dixon is that his book, Growth Through English, put forward the model of English that he, and others, defined as Personal Growth (PG). Later the first National Curriculum for English in 1989 gave this definition: “A ‘personal growth’ view focuses on the child: it emphasises the relationship between language and learning in the individual child, and the role of literature in developing children’s imaginative and aesthetic lives.” My research with secondary English teachers (including many from other countries) demonstrates that PG remains central to their conviction that English is student-centred and devoted to developing individuals as humans – humans who can read, write, speak and listen in thoughtful and sensitive ways. This purpose does not ignore literacy or grammar or literary knowledge, but it positions those important elements within the larger holistic and humanistic project. English teachers are remarkably


reflective practitioners – they own every lesson. No English lesson feels like a text book or a formula, it is individually crafted for that group of students, a group seen as a collection of individuals, not a set of potential grades and outcomes. However, it is important to acknowledge that, while celebrating the importance of the subject for all students and the quality of its teachers, English as a school, college and university subject is currently having a difficult time. Teachers in schools are leaving in large numbers, worn out with the workload and dispirited by the endless official


constraints on their quicksilver subject. Assessment regimes have created a results-driven culture that narrows the curriculum and individual lesson content, making it hard for teachers to own the whole lesson. Recent research suggests that students and teachers are finding that much of English is dull. This issue is coupled with a growing and false prejudice that English degrees do not lead to well-paid employment. University numbers are declining. This a serious development that will discourage students from becoming English teachers. We must remember and celebrate Thuli and, crucially, ourselves. English teachers do have agency, love their subject and must resist, at practitioner level, the attempted diminishment of English by external pressures. This is not idealism, it is realism.


Our English is enjoyable, it is lively and dynamic, it is wide-ranging and inclusive. English teachers improvise and interact with students to make the subject feel alive and relevant to their actual lives. English remains the life-changing, emancipatory subject and its teachers, those unsung heroes and heroines, are the proof.


Professor Andy Goodwyn is head of School of Education & English Language at the University of Bedfordshire. He is president of the International Federation for the Teaching of English and convenor of the Special Interest Group ‘English in Education’ for the British Educational Research Association (BERA).


InTUITIONENGLISH • AUTUMN 2019 3


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