This paper makes a sociological exploration of the enforcement of strong boundaries between "pure" (disciplinary) and "applied" (common-sense) knowledge in primary school English classrooms. This article is innovative in its focus on how pupils describe and evaluate their own experiences. It addressed the research question: "How do primary pupils experience the traditional classroom and what suggestions do they and their teachers express for making improvements to English language learning?" We used observations in 18 classrooms, a written sentence-starter activity with 394 pupils and extended individual interviews with 38 pupils in Egyptian Government primary schools. The research took place in the 2015-2016 school years in response to the British Council's ELT research awards funding (ELTRA). This article conveys the pupils' experiences of learning the "pure" English; and also of experiencing another English outside the classroom, which was legitimised through speaking and interacting rather than through assessed writing. This paper suggests implications for the countries in the Middle East, and further afield, whose public primary schools still emphasise rote learning of the written word more than speaking English for communicative purposes.