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…

This paper draws on observation data from 54 teaching episodes in Year 2 and Year 6 whole-class teaching. It describes the findings of the analysis and illustrates how "interactive", whole-class teaching is characterised by questions requiring predetermined answers. Speculative questions, which invite opinions, hypotheses and imaginings, or…

Describes some of the misconceptions and confusions in metalinguistic understanding that are established by the teacher during whole-class teaching of the active and passive voice. Draws on findings from a larger study investigating how teachers use talk in whole-class settings to scaffold children's learning. (Author/VWL)

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 12-year-olds who were engaged in a work scheme focusing on grammar, and two cohorts of PGCE English students undertaking an intensive grammar course. (Author/VWL)