Initial teacher training, like many other aspects of the education system in England, has undergone radical change over the last 15 years. One of the ways that Government has tried to implement policy is by changing the language script which shapes the practices of schooling and mentoring. There seems to be an assumption on the part of the rule makers that, if both the script and the rules of the practice change, teachers' ways of thinking about their role in education will change. The aim of this article is to demonstrate how critical discourse analysis can be used within the broader theoretical frame of activity theory to explore how far teachers are following the Government scripts, and is part of a wider investigation into how they are working simultaneously in two activities.