Drawn from an ethnographic study of spoken word poetry in Australia, this article offers case studies of two youth poets and follows their journeys with spoken word over three years as they performed in community-based slams, engaged with the New South Wales English Extension 2 curriculum, and served as mentor poets in culturally and…

This study investigates the conflict between the demand for communicative English language skills in employment and education and the lack of effective resources to develop such skills in Bangladesh. It offers a discursive analysis of vital issues in implementing effective communicative language teaching (CLT) by surveying 216 teachers about their…

This paper starts by reporting on the design and trialling of an informal, low-stakes test designed to assess the knowledge of grammar terms of pre-service primary school teachers following the UK's National Curriculum, the results of which were used to inform the design of a series of optional grammar classes. The test proved surprisingly…

Over a three-year collaborative partnership involving university researchers, government curriculum specialists, and school division teams and educators, this post-qualitative study has engaged a diffractive methodology to research pedagogical change in relationship to a renewed provincial curriculum framework in English Language Arts (ELA). In…

Standards and their corresponding assessments have continued to narrow English language arts (ELA) curricula, pushing more playful, creative composition to the margins or to out-of-school pursuits. Simultaneously, students enjoy writing creatively in many extracurricular spaces and activities, like fanfiction. Building from research showing that…

A significant body of research points to the challenges faced by English teachers in balancing creative pedagogy with the demands of high-stakes testing. However, few studies have examined teachers' conceptions of the importance of creativity in the context of end-of-school examinations. This study addresses this critical gap by exploring the…

As burgeoning twenty-first century technologies have enabled new ways of reading, writing and communicating, conceptions of literacy have changed -- and English curricula internationally have been modified to include "new literacy skills." Second-level English teachers, however, report needing more guidance in incorporating the teaching…

The growing interest in the history of curriculum and pedagogy in subject English might be seen as a response to educational reforms that are replacing earlier, progressive understandings of subject English with narrowly technical understandings of teacher professional knowledge and practice. This essay emerges out of an intergenerational,…

Just after the First World War the English Association published The Teaching of English in Schools. It argues that developing children's 'creative spirit' is fundamental to maintaining peace in Europe. Seventy years later, the first National Curriculum promotes a creative, unitary English appropriate for 'a European context'. In contrast, today's…

This article reports the results of a survey of UK Higher Education Institution (HEI) providers of undergraduate degree programmes in English. The survey solicited HEI providers' views on how well each of the A Levels in English prepares students for degree programmes, and asked which of the three A Levels are included in the entry requirements…

In this article, the authors describe how integrating music with reading and writing practices stimulated transmediation to (1) honor musical students' identities, (2) deepen readers' meaning making with literature, and (3) invite writers' memories to generate emotional grist for composing poetry. The authors share examples to inspire teachers to…

This paper presents an argument for aesthetic knowledge in the arts and more specifically, for an aesthetic model of literature to be central in the curriculum. I argue that there are important distinctions to be made between the everyday experiences unique to us as individuals, and the universality of human experience. In the English Literature…

This paper examines the role of literature in the English classroom in Australia and its part in shaping national identity. We contend that it is important to consider the possible roles of national literatures in contemporary school contexts, where students are becoming local and global citizens and argue that reading Australian literature as a…

This essay poses the question of the role that literary knowledge plays in subject English. It thus engages with current debates, largely prompted by Michael Young's call to 'bring knowledge back in', about the need to restore academic knowledge as the basis of the school curriculum. We take issue with Young's understanding of knowledge, arguing…

As part of an ethnographic study of a secondary English Language Arts classroom, one teacher took a critical translingual approach to curriculum and instruction, encouraging students to engage in translanguaging and to explore the intersections of language with power and identity. The larger study's central question was, what does participation in…