Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
366283 Linguistics and Education 2009 23 Pages PDF
Abstract

This article traces the trajectory of educational ideas through policy, curricular materials and enactment in the classroom. Specifically, I examine current English policy regarding the teaching of grammar in primary schools, and its enactment in a Year 3 (8-year olds) literacy lesson. While the policy advances a broadly rhetorical approach to grammar and its instruction, the enacted lesson retains a number of features characteristic of the formal, rule-based grammar instruction this policy seeks to replace. I discuss possible explanations for this outcome, and implications for language education policy. Among other issues, I argue that rhetorical grammar teaching has been thwarted by the “grammars” of schooling and educational accountability.

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Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities Language and Linguistics
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