ABSTRACT
Arguably this is the key idea. English is best taught through an examination of how it works in practice, in real texts written for real purposes. Exactly what it is we are teaching can best be considered in terms of the three levels detailed in the National Literacy Strategy:
■ Text level This means learning ‘how texts work’ in the sense of how they are structured and the ‘rules’ which
operate in them. How does ‘narrative’ work? What about an information text? Two other key ideas which require careful consideration are how readers respond to and understand texts (comprehension) and how writers use this knowledge to write their own (composition).
