In the light of ongoing international debate about the
purpose of explicit teaching of grammar, this paper
considers the relationship between metalinguistic
understanding and development as a writer. Drawing
on a cumulative series of studies over a period of ten
years, adopting a functionally-oriented approach to
grammar, the ...
In the light of ongoing international debate about the
purpose of explicit teaching of grammar, this paper
considers the relationship between metalinguistic
understanding and development as a writer. Drawing
on a cumulative series of studies over a period of ten
years, adopting a functionally-oriented approach to
grammar, the paper argues that purposeful grammar
teaching occurs within the teaching of writing, not
divorced from it; and that this teaching develops
students’ metalinguistic understanding of how
written texts are crafted and shaped. In this way,
grammar is positioned as a resource for learning
about writing and one which can support students in
becoming increasingly autonomous and agentic
decision-makers in writing. We show through
practical examples how the pedagogy works in
practice, and through classroom interaction data we
highlight how metalinguistic talk (metatalk), which
enables and encourages the verbalisation of choice.
The data also shows, however, that teachers’ skill in
managing metatalk about metalinguistic choices in
writing is critical in framing students’ capacity to
think metalinguistically about their writing and to be
autonomous writerly decision-makers.