'High-quality talk' is a fundamental principle of many approaches to teaching grammar.
However, relatively few studies have attempted to characterize this talk with attention to the
ways in which classroom dialogue might engender metalinguistic thinking. This paper explores
how the concepts of procedural and declarative metalinguistic ...
'High-quality talk' is a fundamental principle of many approaches to teaching grammar.
However, relatively few studies have attempted to characterize this talk with attention to the
ways in which classroom dialogue might engender metalinguistic thinking. This paper explores
how the concepts of procedural and declarative metalinguistic knowledge may be applied to
classroom discourse in order to identify the problems and potentials of grammatical 'Metatalk'.
The data is drawn from observations of grammar for writing lessons in 17 classrooms across
England. This opportunity sample was drawn from the intervention group of a randomized
control trial funded by the Education Endowment Foundation all of whom were working within
a pedagogical model which embeds attention to grammar as a resource for meaning-making
within the teaching of writing. Given the impact of effective teacher-student dialogue on
student learning, studies such as this are valuable for illuminating how classroom talk operates
within the teaching of grammar for writing. The findings particularly reveal the role of teacherguided talk during collaborative writing activities in facilitating transfer between declarative
and procedural metalinguistic knowledge.