This study emerged from the abrupt shift to online distance teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic and reports of "Mother Tongue Instruction" (MTI) in Sweden, where online distance teaching was initially introduced in MTI only. In Sweden, MTI is offered to students whose parents/caregivers speak languages other than Swedish on a daily…

School examinations of student responses to literature often present poetry blind or "unseen", inviting decontextualised close reading consistent with the orientation-to-text associated with Practical Criticism (originating in the UK) and New Criticism (originating in the USA). The approach survives in the UK after curricular reforms and…

For some teachers, the call for more dialogic instruction and less monologic instruction has led to the belief that student-led discussions require complete teacher silence. That leads to questions about whether there is enough scaffolding for the students when the teacher does not speak; on the other hand, a teacher-centred classroom invokes the…

This article arises from an action research investigation that sought to understand the ways in which different approaches to teaching pre-twentieth century literature in Year 9 English lessons might influence students' experiences of texts. It examines the proposition that some students need to have a secure understanding of the text before they…