This paper challenges the reductive notion of children as "efferent" readers who learn to decode written language in order to "take away" knowledge. This anachronistic idea has become entrenched in current UK curriculum and education policy. However, it is well established that decoding letters and sounds is only one aspect of…

This essay explores what the development of writing might look like and how it might take shape in a secondary English classroom. The study problematises current definitions of progress. In direct opposition to standards-driven models, I propose an alternative way of thinking about the development of writers through a series of narrative accounts…

This paper explores how the critical learning dimension in an English for academic purposes (EAP) programme in a British university is developed in the context of one classroom task. The focus is on the speaking element of the activity which requires students in pairs to explore each other's personal language history (PLH), present the account to…