ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to understand reasons why subject specialist teachers need to teach the aspects of literacy that are relevant to their subject; and provides an overview of the linguistic skills learners may have acquired by ages 7 to 11 years and 11 to 14 years. It discusses the ways in which subject-specific language is different from the everyday language of spoken English. The responsibility for teaching the full range of text types that learners will encounter across the curriculum, at the level required is beyond the scope of English specialists. Grapho-phonic inconsistency is the reason English is described as having a deep orthography, or complex spelling system. Another reason is that English is a ‘multicultural’ language, drawing its vocabulary from many other languages. English has a morphemic system consisting of two elements: root words and affixes, of which there are two forms – prefixes and suffixes.
