ABSTRACT
One teacher of geography the author spoke to argued that first-year pupils needed the 'clarity' of 'porous' v. 'non-porous'; degrees of porosity would 'confuse' them, 'complexity can come later'. Confronted by the possibility that pupils do not understand, it may be that teachers tend to move towards further precis of content, in the belief that such 'simplifying' renders accessible what has proved difficult. For teachers, if the personal reality of history is rich, and comprises empirical knowledge – anecdotes, people, objects – then the usage is to some extent acceptable. Remedial work is an area where it might be thought that the more informally human relationship that often exists between teacher and pupil, and the basic rationale of the work, would make it unlikely that pupils would be engaged in formalistic encounters with language. Moreover, it seems that the 'easier' language of remedial work remains relatively inaccessible and formalistic despite – or because of–the attempts made to simplify it.
