Debra Myhill

Talk, talk, talk: teaching and learning in whole class discourse

UK national initiatives in education, such as the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies, have been implemented to improve learning and raise standards. These initiatives place considerable significance on whole class interactive teaching, and political rhetoric makes great play of this pedagogic strategy. Teachers have been encouraged to use up to 15 minutes of whole class teaching in literacy and numeracy as a key focus for developing pupil learning. This paper reports on a two‐and‐a‐half‐year research study which investigated the nature and quality of these discourse episodes through analysing how teachers use talk in these whole class teaching episodes to develop and build on pupils’ learning. The study explored how teachers use questions, how they capitalize on pupils’ prior knowledge and how they help pupils become independent learners. A particular focus of the paper is to illustrate how teacher discourse can variously support or impede pupil learning, and how cognitive or conceptual connections in pupils’ learning are often ignored.

Re-thinking grammar: the impact of embedded grammar teaching on students’ writing and students’ metalinguistic understanding

This paper reports on a national study, involving a mixed-method research design comprising a randomised controlled trial (RCT), text analysis, student and teacher interviews and lesson observations. It set out to investigate whether contextualised teaching of grammar, linked to the teaching of writing, would improve student outcomes in writing and in metalinguistic understanding. The RCT involved 744 students in 31 schools in the south-west and the Midlands of England, and was a blind randomisation study. Classes were randomly allocated to either a comparison or intervention group, after the sample had been matched for teacher linguistic subject knowledge (LSK). The statistical data were complemented by three interviews per teacher and three interviews with a focus student in each class, plus three lesson observations in each class, giving a data-set of 93 teacher interviews, 93 student interviews and 93 lesson observations. In addition, the final pieces of writing produced for each scheme of work were collected. The statistical results indicate a significant positive effect for the intervention, but they also indicate that this benefit was experienced more strongly by the more able writers in the sample. The regression modelling also indicates that teacher LSK was a significant mediating factor in the success of the intervention. The qualitative data provide further evidence of the impact of teacher knowledge on how the intervention was implemented and on students’ metalinguistic learning. It also reveals that teachers found the explicitness, the use of discussion and the emphasis on playful experimentation to be the most salient features of the intervention. The study is significant in providing robust evidence for the first time of a positive benefit derived from the teaching of grammar, and signals the potential of a pedagogy for a writing which includes a theorised role for grammar.

Seeing things differently: teachers' constructions of underachievement

The identity of the underachiever has become synonymous with the stereotypical identity of boys. Teachers know what underachievement looks like: it looks like a boy who is bright, but bored. Evidence from a research study reported here demonstrates that teachers are more likely to select boys as underachievers than girls and that teachers construct underachievement differentially by gender. The consequence is that underachievement in girls is often overlooked or rendered invisible. Underachievement is concerned with potential not lack of ability, while high and low achievement are concerned with performance. It becomes a matter of concern if teachers perceive boys as the vessel of potential and of latent ability, while the high achievements of girls are seen to be about performance, not ability.

Towards a Linguistic Model of Sentence Development in Writing

Drawing on the findings of an ESRC-funded research study, which included a detailed linguistic analysis of a large corpus of writing from secondary English classrooms, this article describes patterns of linguistic deployment at the level of the sentence. Given the limited number of applied linguistic studies which consider writing development in older writers, as opposed to primary aged writers, the paper aims to investigate developmental differences in mastery of the sentence in this older age group. It describes similarities and differences in linguistic characteristics of writing at sentence level according to age and writing ability, and makes connections between the linguistic patterns and effectiveness in writing. The paper illustrates that clear developmental trajectories in writing can be determined which have implications for appropriate pedagogical or instructional designs. Finally, the paper offers a linguistic model of sentence development in writing, and signals the potential significance of linguistic models within a multi-disciplinary approach to writing pedagogy.

Discourses of Difference? Examining Gender Differences in Linguistic Characteristics of Writing.

Set in the context of international concerns about boys’ achievements in writing, this article presents research that explores gender differences or similarities in linguistic competence in writing. Drawing on the results of a large ‐ scale analysis of the linguistic characteristics of secondary ‐ aged writers, we outline gender difference in the sample. The article explains the limited differences revealed through this analysis but highlights the repeated pattern of differences in boys’ writing, mirroring parallel patterns in able writers. The findings are discussed light of the prevalent discourse of difference that permeates academic, professional, and political consideration of gender and writing. Keywords: linguistic development, writing processes, identity Dans le droit fil des inquietudes que suscite le rendement scolaire des garcons en ecriture, cet article presente une recherche sur les differences et les similitudes selon le sexe quant a l’aptitude a ecrire. Analysant les resultats d’une vaste etude portant sur les caracteristiques linguistiques d’eleves du secondaire, les auteurs tiennent compte des differences selon le sexe dans l’echantillon. Ils expliquent les differences limitees qu’a revelees cette analyse tout en soulignant le profil repetitif des differences dans les ecrits des garcons, faisant en cela echo a des caracteristiques paralleles chez les eleves ayant une aptitude a ecrire. Les auteurs discutent des conclusions a la lumiere du discours sur la difference partout present dans les considerations pedagogiques, professionnelles et politiques sur le genre et l’ecriture. Mots cles : developpement linguistique, processus d’ecriture, identite

MAKING CONNECTIONS: TEACHERS’ USE OF CHILDREN'S PRIOR KNOWLEDGE IN WHOLE CLASS DISCOURSE

ABSTRACT:  This paper investigates teachers’ use of prior knowledge in whole class teaching contexts and draws on data from an ESRC-funded study. The paper explores how teachers conceptualise prior knowledge, principally as that which has been taught in school. It demonstrates strong teacher awareness of how the teaching under consideration fits with learning previously undertaken by the class, but less awareness of how the learning might build on prior learning outside school. The paper considers how teachers make connections between new learning and prior learning, and how those connections can variously support or confound childrens acquisition of new knowledge and understanding.

The role of grammar in the writing curriculum: A review of the literature:

For most Anglophone countries, the history of grammar teaching over the past 50 years is one of contestation, debate and dissent: and 50 years on we are no closer to reaching a consensus about the role of grammar in the English/Language Arts curriculum. The debate has been described through the metaphor of battle and grammar wars (Kamler, 1995; Locke, 2005), frequently pitting educational professionals against politicians, but also pitting one professional against another. At the heart of the debate are differing perspectives on the value of grammar for the language learner and opposing views of what educational benefits learning grammar may or may not accrue. At the present time, several jurisdictions, including England and Australia, are creating new mandates for grammar in the curriculum. This article reviews the literature on the teaching of grammar and its role in the curriculum and indicates an emerging consensus on a fully-theorized conceptualization of grammar in the curriculum.

Misconceptions and difficulties in the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge.

This paper describes the outcomes of an investigation into the misconceptions and difficulties encountered when learning grammar. The study is based on evidence collected from a class of twelve-year-olds who were engaged upon a workscheme focusing on grammar, andtwo cohortsof PGCE English students undertaking an intensive grammar course. The analysis suggests that learning metalinguistic knowledge can be made problematic for several reasons. Firstly, learning is confounded by the acquired misconceptions which learners bring with them, often misconceptions created by teachers and textbooks. Secondly, there are specific characteristics of English grammar which cause confusion, particularly the mobility of word class. Finally, the process of acquiring metalinguistic knowledge can be hampered by cognitive difficulties related to the conceptual demands of grammar, the transfer of learning from passive to active understanding, and the patterns of inter-connected learning in grammar. The paper suggests that too much professional energy has been attributed to the debate about whether grammar should be taught or not, whilst insufficient research resource has been allocate to investigating how pupils learn. The findings point to a need for development of metalinguistic subject knowledge in teachers and for further research on pupil acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge.

How Talk Becomes Text: Investigating the Concept of Oral Rehearsal in Early Years' Classrooms.

ABSTRACT: The principle that emergent writing is supported by talk, and that an appropriate pedagogy for writing should include planned opportunities for talk is well researched and well understood. However, the process by which talk becomes text is less clear. The term ‘oral rehearsal’ is now commonplace in English classrooms and curriculum policy documents, yet as a concept it is not well theorised. Indeed, there is relatively little reference to the concept of oral rehearsal in the international literature, and what references do exist propose differing interpretations of the concept. At its most liberal, the term is used loosely as a synonym for talk; more precise definitions frame oral rehearsal, for example, as a strategy for reducing cognitive load during writing; for post-hoc reviewing of text; for helping writers to ‘hear’ their own writing; or for practising sentences aloud as a preliminary to writing them down. Drawing on a systematic review of the literature and video data from an empirical study, the paper will offer a theoretical conceptualisation of oral rehearsal, drawing on existing understanding of writing processes and will illustrate the ways in which young writers use oral rehearsal before and during writing.

Writing Voices: Creating Communities of Writers

Drawing upon recent research projects undertaken by the authors and others in the international research community, this fascinating text considers the nature of composing and the experience of being a writer. In the process it: • explores the role of talk, creativity, autonomy, metacognition, writing as design and the shaping influence of literature and other texts; • examines young people’s composing processes and attitudes to writing; • considers teachers’ identities as writers and what can be learnt when teachers engage reflectively in writing ; • shares a range of professional writers’ practices, processes and perspectives; • gives prominence to examples of writing from children, teachers, student teachers and professional writers alongside their reflective commentaries. This thought-provoking text offers theoretical insights and practical directions for developing the teaching and learning of writing.