Lloyd, Donald J. “An English Composition Course Built Around Linguistics.” College Composition and Communication 4.2 (1953): 40-3. Print.
In this article, Donald Lloyd argued for a linguistic approach to the Composition course; one in which both the English language and the students themselves were central. He pointed out that linguistics while respected as a science and put to use in language pedagogy, it was typically used to teach English to non-native speakers and teaching and understanding foreign languages. Lloyd also discussed the disconnect between linguists and English teachers; linguists, he described as, not knowing the concerns of English teachers and not speaking in terms they could understand. At the same time, Lloyd explicated the benefits of English teachers drawing on linguistics in their pedagogy. For example, according to Lloyd, linguistics could help teachers examine their own practices. Teachers could learn to see students as “walking funds of knowledge” from whom they could learn as they teach. He continued:
“Taking (the student) as possessing a matured set of habits-a system of habits-we approach him on the basis of what is now known about habit formation-especially the formation of language habits among people who form a community and meet face to face. If we find anything we have to change in the language of the student-and we do-we know that we are touching something that goes deep into his past and spreads wide in his personal life. We will seek not to dislodge one habit in favor of another but to provide alternative choices for freer social mobility” (42).
Lloyds end goal, similar to Green’s (1963) was to increase the social mobility of a greater number of students. However, contrary to Green’s (1963) approach Lloyd advocated for English teachers to “enrich” and not “correct” their students language habits (42). Lloyd asserted that linguistics would prompt English teachers to be more engaged and proactive – unable “to hide behind other men’s workbooks” (42). His approach also set the precedent for the need for teachers to learn who students are outside of the classroom; working “with” students, not “on” them (42).