My friend Peter Doughty, who has died aged 79, made a major contribution to the study of linguistics with his book Language in Use. The book met the pressing need for a clear approach to language in the classroom. Above all, it aimed to put into the hands of every teacher a guide to the ways in which their pupils' own experience of language could be the basis for teaching and learning.
Peter was born in Norbury, south London, was educated at the City of London school and studied history and English at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He taught for six years at Haberdashers' Aske's school in Elstree, Hertfordshire. One of his pupils was Simon Schama; reminded of this some years later, Schama responded: "Peter Doughty – he was very tough."
Peter was an active member of the London Association for the Teaching of English. In 1964, he was invited to join the programme in linguistics and English teaching at University College London. There, he became the director of the Language in Use project, which aimed to make academic linguistics more accessible to the many people who wished to find out what it might have to say about language and the use of language. After the publication of his two books, Language in Use and Exploring Language, both in 1971, he and his wife, Anne, whom he married that year, presented them to teachers all over the country. Language in Use has been translated into many languages and is still widely used around the world.
In 1971, after the programme's conclusion, Peter moved to the Manchester College of Education, where he taught for 12 years; he was justly proud of the fact that his mature students tended to get higher grades than other teachers' students.
Retiring to Norfolk in 1984, he became a church warden at Blakeney and was awarded a diploma in religious studies. In 1998 he and Anne moved to her native Northern Ireland. Living in Belfast, Peter encouraged and supported her in the writing of her 12 successful novels. He was a man with a passionate desire to speak the truth but with a charming vulnerability that endeared him to his many friends.
Anne survives him.