What is English teaching?

• Aspects of English
• Additionally

Also see What is the history of English teaching?

Harold Rosen:

the teacher of English, whose syllabus – it is often said – is quite simply life itself

Literature is the central humanising experience of the curriculum and critical discrimination a morally educative activity.

Aspects of English

• Basic skills.
• Literature.
• Creativity (and personal growth through creativity).
• Growth through linguistic competence.
• Engagement with personal and social issues.

Additionally

Creative teaching involves the delivery of material in a manner which encourages the student to be motivated/engaged and transfer his or her knowledge and apply the knowledge to solve problems

Experiment and innovation seen quite narrowly as means in which to better prepare children for examination.

Current English (certainly at secondary) is aping classics: knowledge about texts plus regurgitation of views about themes, characters, formal elements. Personal, emotional responses downgraded.

Differences between the cognitive and the affective subjects.

Are the four main activities within English: literature, creativity, discrimination, and classroom talk?

English is an affective education.

Literature or personal experience as stimulus for writing? (Perhaps influence of Jungian personality development after WW2; English contributing to the process of individuation?)

A rich reading classroom.

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch:

Can you not give them also in their short years at school, something to sustain their souls in the long Valley of Humiliation?