ABSTRACT
Primary school children are noticeably absent from much of the research up to the 1990s on the effectiveness of teaching grammar. Absent, in that a majority of the oft-cited and largest studies were conducted with older subjects: high school or tertiary students. Absent, in that even in the subset of studies in which primary children are present in the data, they are rendered almost invisible, represented often only by test scores of experimental instruments and essays. In this chapter I hope both to address some of the theory which I think is responsible for the comparatively limited representation of young children in the research, and to offer some redress by summarizing some research which focuses on primary school children and which includes their own views and voices. The research upon which I will focus consists of several case studies in primary school classrooms where the children learned aspects of systemic functional grammar (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; 1st edition Halliday, 1985). The functional grammar in these classes was contextualized within a wider “Knowledge about Language” framework,1 although the breadth of the metalinguistic interest and knowledge of the children cannot be fully represented in this chapter. Importantly, functional grammar was also contextualized as a strongly integrated dimension of the classes’ English/literacy programs. The summary of this research will address both the accessibility of functional grammar and its utility across several areas within the English curriculum.
