From Sociolinguistic Research to English Language Teaching

Abstract

Sociolinguistic research on spoken English and language variation has acquired great importance in the UK secondary school curriculum with the introduction in 1981 of the GCE (General Certificate of Education) Advanced level examination in English Language. The specifications place heavy demands on teachers. Most English schoolteachers have a background in English literature, not language—two very different disciplines—and so have little or no training in linguistic analysis, especially as applied to spoken rather than written language. In this chapter we discuss resources developed for teachers to use in the classroom based on our recent research on the English of young people in London. The resources are contained within a web-based English Language Teaching Resources Archive and consist of three types of resource: a databank of sound clips and accompanying transcripts; a Linguistics Research Digest; and a set of Language Investigations. We also discuss workshops that were organized for English Language teachers and designed with the aim of disseminating insights from scholarly research about language variation and change and of providing teachers with the analytical tools to enable them to analyse spoken language. Furthermore, we discuss the ethical considerations involved in making data collected for scholarly research available to other researchers and to a wider audience. We conclude that building resources such as those described in this chapter is a worthwhile endeavour, but, as is the case for the teachers for whom the materials were developed, time and human resources are in short supply. Financial support is required to ensure the future of the Linguistics Research Digest and for the development of the Databank and Language Investigations. So far, we have been unable to secure the necessary funding but we continue to explore possibilities.