This paper reports on the qualitative strand of a Randomised Control Trial (RCT) study which involved the implementation of a pedagogical intervention emphasising the relationship between linguistic choice and effect in written text. The intervention was delivered to all year 6 students (aged 10-11) in 55 English schools. Drawing on observational data of 17 lessons, each taught by a different teacher, the analysis presented here focuses on how metatalk – talk about writing - was utilised by teachers during the intervention to foster metalinguistic discussion about written text. The findings draw particular attention to: the way that metatalk about written text manifests in different forms and for different purposes; the particular complexities of metatalk about written text; and how metatalk about can be orchestrated in a way which supports the cumulative development of metalinguistic understanding about written text. This paper argues that students’ learning may hinge particularly on how teachers orchestrate metatalk repertoires to make connections between ideas and develop understandings in lessons.

This study investigated the metalinguistic reflections of 12 students, aged 14–15 years, undertaking a unit of work focused on reading and writing non-fiction. The unit embedded contextualised grammar teaching into preparation for English Language examinations. Students were interviewed twice, with prompts to discuss a sample of argument text in interview one, and a sample of their own writing in interview two. The interviews and subsequent analysis drew on Gombert's taxonomy of metalinguistic understanding, focusing on metasemantic, metasyntactic and metatextual reflections, and probing students’ ability to link these to metapragmatic concerns. Similarly to previous studies, the findings suggest that students struggle to articulate the impact of metasyntactic choices; however, here it is suggested that this may be a particular artefact of the need for a specialised metalanguage for discussing syntax. Results also indicate a tendency to reify form-function relationships, and signal the potential benefit of using students’ own writing as a platform for exploring authorial choices. Finally, the study contributes to the theorisation of metalinguistic understanding by suggesting how declarative knowledge may emerge from procedural activity, with interviews scaffolding students’ ability to articulate what had initially been tacit language choices.

This paper reports on an ESRC and British Telecom funded study which explored the teaching of collaborative talk in the secondary English classroom. While research signals the crucial role of the teacher in promoting dialogic pedagogies, less specific attention has been given to how teacher discourse can shape the development of students’ collaborative dialogue. Through multiple data sources, this paper will explore the discourse of one of two project teachers who implemented an intervention which, drawing on research in educational linguistics, emphasised the role of metatalk in developing students’ collaborative talk. In particular, it will examine how one teacher facilitated and modelled productive interaction, scaffolding students’ understanding and appropriation of the expectations and language of collaborative talk. This paper will argue that teachers must utilise and model the talk they promote, and will consider the communicative and interpersonal aspects of this scaffolding process. It will also contribute to the argument that the teacher's role is central in the promotion and development of productive peer dialogue as a component of a repertoire of classroom talk.

Historically, theoretical consideration of metalinguistic understanding has scarcely addressed the issue in the context of writing, other than in relation to early years writing development where there is a substantial body of work. Consequently, there is very limited understanding of how older writers in the upper primary and secondary phase of schooling develop metalinguistic understanding about writing. Arguably, writing is always an act of selecting, shaping, reflecting and revising (Myhill, 2011) and thus draws crucially on metalinguistic activity. Critical to the development of this metalinguistic understanding is how teachers manage ‘metatalk’, talk about language use in writing, during instructional interactions around writing and how teachers enable developing writers to explore their thinking about how language shapes meaning in written text. This paper, drawing on data from a large national study, will explore the nature and efficacy of teachers’ interactions with students and how they enable high-level metatalk to occur, specifically how they create dialogic spaces for investigating meaning-making in written text. The paper will explore the close relationship between high-quality metatalk and open dialogic discourse roles for the teacher, but it will also highlight the complexity of metatalk for writing and how dialogic-monologic discourses are best viewed as a continuum which take account of other influencing factors.

This paper draws on the findings of an ESRC and British Telecom funded study which explored the teaching of collaborative talk. A teaching intervention was designed which adopted the principles of dialogic teaching, but which, drawing on educational linguistics, particularly emphasised the role of metatalk in developing students’ awareness of the interpersonal processes of collaborative talk. To facilitate the development of this metatalk, a framework was devised which described collaborative talk as a process of participating, understanding and managing. The research project was a rich qualitative study based in two secondary English classrooms in two different schools, capturing group interaction through video and audio data capture. 90 hours of synchronised audio and video data from 5 groups in each class were coded first deductively, informed by the framework for collaborative talk, and then inductively. Substantial episodes of talk were subsequently transcribed to illustrate themes which emerged through coding. Drawing on the findings, this paper will present transcripts from one group in each school to describe how the strands, participating, understanding and managing, appeared in students’ collaborative talk. It will illustrate how these strands may develop in talk over time, visible in the increased ‘attunement’ of students’ turns. It will explore how the framework facilitated the development of students’ collaborative and metatalk, and how it can be used to foster effective dialogic talk about language. The framework for collaborative talk represents an original contribution to research which conceptualizes effective educational peer dialogue, and its use as a scaffold for metatalk draws attention to the role of metalinguistic understanding in talk development.

The rich body of research on dialogic, exploratory talk points to its significance in developing and securing student learning (Alexander, 2018; Gillies, 2016; O’Connor & Michaels, 2007; Reznitskaya et al. 2009). More recently, this body of research has begun to consider dialogic talk specifically in the context of literacy education (for example, Boyd & Markarian, 2015; EdwardsGroves & Davidson, 2017; Juzwik et al. 2013; Wilkinson et al. 2015). However, there remains a dearth of research which considers the role of dialogic talk in the teaching and learning of writing, and particularly its role in supporting developing writers’ metalinguistic understanding of how linguistic choices shape meaning in written texts. This article will report on qualitative
data drawn from a national study, involving a randomised controlled trial and an accompanying process evaluation. The study involved an intervention which was informed by a Hallidayan theoretical framing of metalinguistic understanding which sees grammar as a meaning-making resource, and which promoted explicit teaching which made purposeful connections between grammatical choices and their meaning-making effects in writing, and which promoted the role of dialogic talk. Specifically, this article will consider how teachers manage this metalinguistic dialogic talk about language choices in the writing classroom.

This paper reports on the qualitative strand of a Randomised Control Trial (RCT) study which involved the implementation of a pedagogical intervention emphasising the relationship between linguistic choice and effect in written text. The intervention was delivered to all year 6 students (aged 10-11) in 55 English schools. Drawing on observational data of 17 lessons, each taught by a different teacher, the analysis presented here focuses on how metatalk – talk about writing - was utilised by teachers during the intervention to foster metalinguistic discussion about written text. The findings draw particular attention to: the way that metatalk about written text manifests in different forms and for different purposes; the particular complexities of metatalk about written text; and how metatalk about can be orchestrated in a way which supports the cumulative development of metalinguistic understanding about written text. This paper argues that students’ learning may hinge particularly on how teachers orchestrate metatalk repertoires to make connections between ideas and develop understandings in lessons.

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.

This study investigated the metalinguistic reflections of 12 students, aged 14–15 years, undertaking a unit of work focused on reading and writing non-fiction. The unit embedded contextualised grammar teaching into preparation for English Language examinations. Students were interviewed twice, with prompts to discuss a sample of argument text in interview one, and a sample of their own writing in interview two. The interviews and subsequent analysis drew on Gombert's taxonomy of metalinguistic understanding, focusing on metasemantic, metasyntactic and metatextual reflections, and probing students’ ability to link these to metapragmatic concerns. Similarly to previous studies, the findings suggest that students struggle to articulate the impact of metasyntactic choices; however, here it is suggested that this may be a particular artefact of the need for a specialised metalanguage for discussing syntax. Results also indicate a tendency to reify form-function relationships, and signal the potential benefit of using students’ own writing as a platform for exploring authorial choices. Finally, the study contributes to the theorisation of metalinguistic understanding by suggesting how declarative knowledge may emerge from procedural activity, with interviews scaffolding students’ ability to articulate what had initially been tacit language choices.

This paper reports on an ESRC and British Telecom funded study which explored the teaching of collaborative talk in the secondary English classroom. While research signals the crucial role of the teacher in promoting dialogic pedagogies, less specific attention has been given to how teacher discourse can shape the development of students’ collaborative dialogue. Through multiple data sources, this paper will explore the discourse of one of two project teachers who implemented an intervention which, drawing on research in educational linguistics, emphasised the role of metatalk in developing students’ collaborative talk. In particular, it will examine how one teacher facilitated and modelled productive interaction, scaffolding students’ understanding and appropriation of the expectations and language of collaborative talk. This paper will argue that teachers must utilise and model the talk they promote, and will consider the communicative and interpersonal aspects of this scaffolding process. It will also contribute to the argument that the teacher's role is central in the promotion and development of productive peer dialogue as a component of a repertoire of classroom talk.

Historically, theoretical consideration of metalinguistic understanding has scarcely addressed the issue in the context of writing, other than in relation to early years writing development where there is a substantial body of work. Consequently, there is very limited understanding of how older writers in the upper primary and secondary phase of schooling develop metalinguistic understanding about writing. Arguably, writing is always an act of selecting, shaping, reflecting and revising (Myhill, 2011) and thus draws crucially on metalinguistic activity. Critical to the development of this metalinguistic understanding is how teachers manage ‘metatalk’, talk about language use in writing, during instructional interactions around writing and how teachers enable developing writers to explore their thinking about how language shapes meaning in written text. This paper, drawing on data from a large national study, will explore the nature and efficacy of teachers’ interactions with students and how they enable high-level metatalk to occur, specifically how they create dialogic spaces for investigating meaning-making in written text. The paper will explore the close relationship between high-quality metatalk and open dialogic discourse roles for the teacher, but it will also highlight the complexity of metatalk for writing and how dialogic-monologic discourses are best viewed as a continuum which take account of other influencing factors.

This paper draws on the findings of an ESRC and British Telecom funded study which explored the teaching of collaborative talk. A teaching intervention was designed which adopted the principles of dialogic teaching, but which, drawing on educational linguistics, particularly emphasised the role of metatalk in developing students’ awareness of the interpersonal processes of collaborative talk. To facilitate the development of this metatalk, a framework was devised which described collaborative talk as a process of participating, understanding and managing. The research project was a rich qualitative study based in two secondary English classrooms in two different schools, capturing group interaction through video and audio data capture. 90 hours of synchronised audio and video data from 5 groups in each class were coded first deductively, informed by the framework for collaborative talk, and then inductively. Substantial episodes of talk were subsequently transcribed to illustrate themes which emerged through coding. Drawing on the findings, this paper will present transcripts from one group in each school to describe how the strands, participating, understanding and managing, appeared in students’ collaborative talk. It will illustrate how these strands may develop in talk over time, visible in the increased ‘attunement’ of students’ turns. It will explore how the framework facilitated the development of students’ collaborative and metatalk, and how it can be used to foster effective dialogic talk about language. The framework for collaborative talk represents an original contribution to research which conceptualizes effective educational peer dialogue, and its use as a scaffold for metatalk draws attention to the role of metalinguistic understanding in talk development.