Integrating English

Integrating English is a project run by Billy Clark, Marcello Giovanelli and Andrea Macrae. The aims of the project are

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• to develop new ways of understanding English, particularly through integrating the study of language and literature,

• to promote stylistics as a discipline, so as to improve English in education at all levels.

 

We believe that English can be seen and taught as a unified subject even though it covers a diverse range of kinds of work. All of these kinds of work are unified by the core concern of how texts are produced and responded to.

 

We believe that texts are at the heart of English although we are by no means the first to suggest this. Many academics and teachers have suggested shifting critical attention, and models of educational practice from the highlighting of differences to an emphasis on similarities and connections between different kinds of texts and approaches to study across various sub-disciplines. This project builds on this work in aiming to explore ways of thinking about English as a unified subject which encompasses a rich and fruitful diversity.

 

We believe that an integrated view of English helps students to understand the relationships between language and interpretation in all kinds of communication. It avoids gaps in understanding of meaning-making which can follow from treating ‘everyday’ and ‘literary’ language as distinct. It empowers students with more sophisticated skills in communication and comprehension when dealing with all kinds of discourse types and contexts. This approach can enrich the experience of texts and communication, equipping students to speak, write, read and listen intelligently, skilfully, and with insight and understanding, in further education, in employment and in daily life.*

 

The project aims to share knowledge and research about issues around the position of language and literature in education (see our publications page), and support teachers who are interested in integrating language and literature in the classroom: see our events page and our Lang-Lit Lab that provides resources for teachers.

 

To contact us for further information, please email: integrating english project (as one word) at gmail dot com.

 

*For more on the value of integrating English, please read our article ‘English: Diverse but unified. Putting texts at the heart of the discipline’.

 

 

A photo from our Integrating English symposium 2015 (see our Events page for more on this and other events).