ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the Enhancing Language and Communication in Secondary Schools (ELCISS) programme based on a research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
The adolescent period is a significant transition, typified by changes in all aspects of development, including language (Moshman, 1999). Even though most children have acquired the basic foundations of their target language by the age of 3 years, it is well accepted that language development does not stop at this point but develops in complexity throughout adolescence (Nippold, 2007), when growth is more subtle and gradual, but no less significant. As children move from primary to secondary school, their interactions typically become more peer-focused, and they are required to negotiate the many new challenges of secondary school: multiple teaching styles, an increasingly complex education curriculum, the need for abstract reasoning and idiomatic understanding, heavy reliance on the written word, the ability to take the perspectives of others and a greater need for independent working and self-reflection.
