Dialogue about language and games-based pedagogy

Abstract

Project Explore how spoken interaction might be used to scaffold and develop students' knowledge about language, as well as the students' use of grammatical metalanguage as a tool for ta lking and thinking about the ways that language is used. Teacher Imogene Cochrane Bond is not just an experienced classroom teacher, but a postgraduate research student too. Mentor Susan Feez is a university-based teacher educator who teaches and researches in the fields of languages, literacies, English as an additional language (EAL) and Montessori education. She is supervising Imogene as she completes her postgraduate studies. Setting Year 1 classroom in an inner-city public primary school in Sydney. Imogene's class of 24 students, like most Australian primary school classes, was culturally, socially, academically, economically and linguistically diverse. Most students had also attended Kindergarten, the Foundation year in New South Wales, at this school, where there was a whole-school approach to the cumulative development of students' knowledge about language from Kindergarten through to Year 6. Students already had some experience in talking about language, and some exposure to grammatical metalanguage, before the case study unit of learning was implemented.