James Britton

Language and learning

From the moment children first speak and attach a sound to an object or a person, language plays a significant and central part in their development. Their speech is, of course, a means of communication - and yet the emphasis in this book is on the importance of speech, not to their listeners, but to themselves. It shows, for example, that much of childrens behaviour consists of doing what they have told themselves to do - that the world they see and act in is a world largely called into existence by words of their own speaking.

Prospect and retrospect : selected essays of James Britton

The essays featured here were written over the last thirty years by one of Englands leading teachers of teachers, and writers about language and learning.