I’m bad at speaking English but it’s the only language I know

I’m bad at speaking English but it’s the only language I know

This is what Director Spike Jonze said when accepting his Golden Globe Award and it led me to think about to what extent native speakers can improve their English when we no longer participate in English language classes and perhaps feel we don’t quite have the time to sit down and focus on learning grammar and such like.

I have heard it said many times, but can’t find any evidence for it, that Margaret Thatcher got rid of the teaching of English language in schools in the 1980s and 1990s and that is why people of my age are bad at grammar. Although I have no recollection of studying English language even though I have a GCSE grade B in it  I am not sure I can blame Margaret Thatcher for all my problems and have decided to actively improve my English.

In the ‘How to write a thesis’ book I mentioned before, the author Rowena Murray gives readers this fun quiz, how many do you know?:

1. What are the definite and indefinite articles?
2. When and how do you use a semi-colon?
3. What is a personal pronoun?
4. What is ‘the antecedent’?
5. What is subject–verb agreement?
6. What are the essential elements of a sentence?
7. Give examples of sentences using the passive and active voices.
8. What is the difference in meaning between the two?
9. Define ‘sentence boundaries’ and say why they are important.
10. What is a topic sentence?

I am ashamed to say that I knew only four and she says if you know five or less, then you have a problem! I won’t give the answers here as it is important for everyone to do a bit of self-study, but I have to say that my mind was blown when I discovered what a topic sentence was and already I feel that I can improve my writing but will have to actively work on it and not rest on my native speaker laurels.

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• academia
• english language
• grammar
• Margaret Thatcher
• PhD
• student
• writing
• writing skills
• writing style