Despite the potential benefits of partnership teaching, as distinct from collaborative teaching and support teaching, evidence from the Midlands and West of England suggests that full partnership teaching between a class teacher and language support teacher of English as an Additional Language is rare, though collaboration is increasing. Occasionally both teachers are centre-stage, and partnership talk, where two teachers together teach the class, occurs. Drawing on Christie's theory of regulative and instructional registers in curriculum genres, this paper analyses part of a Year 1 social studies lesson where the language support teacher moves from a silent, scribing role, through responding, then nomination and feedback moves in the regulative register, to initiating content and directing beautifully choreographed action centre-stage in the instructional register. This analysis forms the basis of a framework of variables that characterise a proposed continuum from support talk through collaborative talk to partnership talk. The analysis and interpretation of such teacher-teacher classroom talk when it does occur arguably constitutes an essential basis for understanding how language support relationships are realised and develop for the adults and children involved.