English Literacy Inspired by the Vision of NL Clay
Clay Lane is a website for people who care deeply about the language and heritage of the English people, and who want to know more about them because they understand how important these things are for our future. It is inspired by textbooks written by Yorkshire schoolmaster NL Clay, and used in English schools and homes from the 1920s to the 1960s. Clay Lane is ideal for those who prefer traditional methods, traditional content, and the option of one-to-one human contact.
Read famous (and not so famous) passages from history, legend, biography, politics, poetry and fiction, and try your hand at exercises similar to those Clay gave to pupils in secondary schools before the educational changes of the 1960s. Use what you find here to improve your command of good, clear, correctly spelled and punctuated English, or just browse for pleasure.
Everything on Clay Lane is free to use. Share your creativity with me, and if you’d like a little help, just ask. See Email Support.
“The course should train pupils to observe, learn more of the world they live in, think clearly, use the imagination and to speak clearly.”
NL Clay, Think and Speak (1929)
Featured Post
From An Unlikely Heroine
She was fond of all boys’ play and greatly preferred cricket, not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy, nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rose-bush. Indeed she had no taste for a garden, and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief, at least so it was conjectured.
Featured Exercise
Statements, Questions and Commands Find in Think and Speak
Use each word below in a sentence. Try to include at least one statement, one question and one command among your sentences. Note that some verbs make awkward or meaningless words of command, e.g. need, happen.
1 Survive. 2 Tie. 3 Yawn. 4 Adjust. 5 Occur. 6 Cost. 7 Cover. 8 Owe. 9 Read.
Variations: 1. use a minimum of seven words for each sentence 2. include negatives, e.g. isn’t, don’t, never 3. use the words ‘must’ to make commands 4. compose a short dialogue containing all three kinds of sentence: one statement, one question and one command
