"MANY STUDENTS - even good ones, judging from their ideas and familiarity with texts - can no longer write grammatically. Their writing is frequently illogical, muddled and at times incomprehensible. Yet they appear to think they are making sense."
This statement comes from page 2 of the chief examiner's report on higher-level English in the 1995 Leaving Cert examination.
What has led to this serious situation? There are several possible answers: the electronic age, the decline in reading and the quality of teaching.
Research has shown that young people spend a lot of time watching television at home. While this is an obvious source of pleasure and entertainment, it detracts from the discipline necessary to read a book or write a story. It is difficult to see how this situation can he halted or reversed. Few children or teenagers see reading as a viable and pleasurable alternative to the bright colours and vibrant sounds of the magic box.
Good writing habits depend on good reading habits. Familiarity with a variety of books and authors inculcates an awareness of languages and an expansion of vocabulary. Many students read little outside school texts. The comics, magazines and tabloids they may read are more images than print. Even textbooks are being reduced to graphics and accompanying points.
come years ago, I gave students in a new fourth-year class a novel each to read and report on. One lad proudly boasted that it was the best of the three novels he had read in his life - the other two being an Enid Blyton and the set novel for the Inter Cert. Yet, on the basis of this, he aspired to a high grade in higher-level English. To ameliorate this situation, I now organise reading classes in school time, in a belated effort to reclaim lost ground.
The new Junior Cert course has great potential to improve literacy. Because it is unprescribed, teachers have the freedom to select reading material and to encourage a variety of writing skills.
The main problem is one of assessment and correction. In theory every written exercise in the English class should be read and commented on. Unlike history, science or maths, where the content is all important, the English teacher has to assess content and style. Lapses in syntax, grammar, punctuation and spelling should be pointed out. Incomprehensible and illogical statements should be corrected. Problems of over-writing or repetition should be dealt with. Poor paragraphing or badly structured writing needs comment.
English exercises, unfortunately, cannot be corrected on the blackboard, nor can they be corrected collectively. Individual attention is necessary. The problem is one of time. A teacher could spend 12 hours a day at this work and still not be finished.
The attitude of the Department of Education and schools to English as a subject compounds the problem. While limits are placed on class size in subjects like art or home economics, the English class is limitless. This year, I have 34 students in my Leaving Cert honours English class. A two-hour Christmas exam gave me 248 (A4) pages to read, decipher, comprehend, assess, comment on and mark. Every essay or essay-type question I give means up to eight hours' assessment.
I have no doubt that constant monitoring and encouragement does lead to an improvement in writing standards and that if wetting is not checked regularly, standards nose-dive. The chief examiner is right when he states that "pupils become adept writers through writing and there is no substitute for this... many intelligent and able students are handicapped by a lack of writing skills. Their natural ability and flair shines through... but their written presentation is tentative and defective and consequently confusing."
If the Department of Education is seriously worried about the quality of writing, it should limit English classes to a maximum of 20 to 24. Even the most conscientious teacher has his or her limits.
