Developing metalinguistic talk through teacher–researcher partnership

You can listen to an audio version of this article above. RUTH NEWMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN LANGUAGE AND LITERACY EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER, UK Introduction A large body of research illustrates the benefits of talk for learning (Mercer and Littleton, 2007; Wegerif, 2013; Jay et al., 2017), recognising that ‘Of all the tools for educational intervention in students’ development, talk is perhaps the most pervasive in its use and powerful in its possibilities’ (Alexander, 2020, p. 15). While much has been written about the benefits of talk for writing (Fisher et al., 2010; Corbett and Strong, 2017), research indicates the particular value of classroom talk that supports thinking about writerly choice (e.g. Myhill and Newman, 2016, 2019). ‘Metalinguistic talk’ is a term used to describe talk specifically about language use. This metalinguistic talk, which can support learners’ capacity to better craft and control their writing, can occur in various forms – for exam