Willem B. Hollmann

Head of the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh; SFHEA; views expressed here my own; he/him/his

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

Very happy to see my article on Standard English live on The Conversation. Recent media coverage (@BBCr4today, @thesundaytimes, @guardian) has revealed misunderstandings about this. Here, I clarify five of the most pernicious ones.
#grammar #EngLang
https://t.co/yFcqVkUxQP

[ReadingWise @ReadingWise]

Is our approach to teaching reading failing our children? @ProfWHollmann, Cathie Wallace & @GeeMacrory discuss why phonics isn’t working.
#Literacy #Education #Reading
https://t.co/4sHRKRnP9u

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@ReadingWise @GeeMacrory Many thanks for sharing @ReadingWise 🙏🏻

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@ProfSebSuggate @BecCarey76 @ConversationUK @Dominic_Wyse @AliceJBradbury @LiteracyTrust Hi Sebastian & welcome to the (mostly) wonderful world of Twitter/X!
I believe @BecCarey's comment was aimed primarily at my @ConversationUK piece. In it, I cite your to my mind excellent (2016) meta-analysis of reading interventions in the Journal of Learning Disabilities.

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

Another issue with the unusually heavy focus on phonics in England is that the early stories children are made to read are designed to contain only a small number of sounds. As a result, they can sound artificial and may not be engaging. 5/6

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@niftyspringett @EngLangBlog It's definitely authentic for them; used a lot when they play Roblox etc. What they find ironic is that their dad is a linguist yet needs to ask them what 'ez' means 😆 (I'd seen that in gaming years ago but had never heard it pronounced as /ez/.)

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@pitts_adrian @matilda__martin @GillianKeegan Interesting fact about govt's recruitment targets: some have been lowered drastically compared to last year. For example, the target for #English was 3,035 and is now 2,290🤔 Without this decrease the forecast for this would surely be under target too.
https://t.co/3bAIsLGeHu

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

So I'd heard of silent corridors but in an @OCR_English forum learnt that there's even "silent classrooms" and "silent schools"... Students not allowed to talk to each other about a text in an English lesson, for example🤔 The @oracycommission's work is very timely!
@voice21oracy

[Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster Uni @LAEL_LU]

Join us for a free online webinar on current issues in corpus linguistics. 14 May 11am UK time. Also learn more about our online training in corpus linguistics.

https://t.co/AXJHbchJe1

[Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster Uni @LAEL_LU]

Lancaster University is 3rd in the World for Linguistics❗️ Come to study and do research with us – applications are still open.

➡️ Our department: https://t.co/mJhxbtNSQ5

➡️ Scholarships: https://t.co/dHobFkIcoi

@LAEL_LU @LancasterUni @TopUnis

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@BarbaraBleiman Great you're looking into this @BarbaraBleiman👍
My sense is there's lots of variation depending on school, teacher and home. But after 15 years of 'phonics first and foremost' literacy hasn't improved drastically and joy of reading is at a 20-year low.
https://t.co/eIeSo84Q80

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@telbanhamuk Great question; understandable in the context of #phonics. Here's a child's spelling I've seen: "my shoes were rewind". Instead of "ruined" obvs.
I argue in a new article that although synthetic phonics works it's best combined with other things: https://t.co/eIeSo84Q80

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@Trundling17 Very interesting tweet (if X still allows us to call it that 😄) Rosie! I've just written an article on @ConversationUK that argues for the use of a broader range of approaches/strategies:
https://t.co/eIeSo84Q80

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@Christianilbury @BBCMorningLive @accentbias @bobbyfriction @bbcwm @ambersandhu_ Indeed, not least because they can help so much in reducing them -- as you highlight in your conversation with Bobby in the clip👍

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@Christianilbury @BBCMorningLive @accentbias Excellent item Christian; great to see Bobby Friction (@bobbyfriction) making the effort to talk to you. Brave also of @bbcwm's Amber Sandhu (@ambersandhu_) to reflect on how she accommodated towards the standard earlier in her career, but has since moved beyond that.

[Vaclav Brezina @vaclavbrezina]

A brand new version of the popular corpus linguistics tool #LancsBox X v. 4.0.0 is now available as part of @CorpusSocialSci extensive innovation programme:

-ngrams and skipgrams
-new visualizations
- export corpora
- lightning fast searches

https://t.co/MBL4bzvq5J

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

Thanks so much Lester (@lesterkk) for our chat about #phonics and children's #literacy on @CapeTalk this morning. Interesting to see & discuss with another parent how the issues raised in my @ConversationUK article have echoes in many parts of the globe!

https://t.co/RXlW7z0mIl

[Elena Semino @elenasemino.bsky.social @elenasemino]

Last UG Offer Holder Day of the year in @LAEL_LU today, with taster lectures on Shakespeare’s language by @j_culpeper and language acquisition by @SilleBrandt

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@BecCarey76 @ConversationUK @Dominic_Wyse @AliceJBradbury @ProfSebSuggate @LiteracyTrust Your use of the passive makes it unclear who interprets it as such but I hope I've clarified this. And yep, we believe decodable books are often less engaging than authentic texts & sometimes contain language that's barely acceptable English. "Sam sits in"... Really? In what??🤔

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@BecCarey76 @ConversationUK @Dominic_Wyse @AliceJBradbury @ProfSebSuggate @LiteracyTrust And the UK has never equalled its score of 523 in 2000, before the phonics first and foremost approach, let alone surpassed it. These test results are publicly available, and Prof. Wyse has written about his study in e.g. @SchoolsWeek. 3/3

https://t.co/LWfOCa7LzF

[Willem B. Hollmann @ProfWHollmann]

@BecCarey76 @ConversationUK @Dominic_Wyse @AliceJBradbury @ProfSebSuggate @LiteracyTrust To be fair, the UK does pretty well for #literacy in the international #PISA comparison. That’s great. But Ireland and Canada, who don’t have the same heavy emphasis on synthetic #phonics, do better. 2/3