ABSTRACT

Schools, colleges and universities are the key institutions charged with transmitting and promoting learning in a modern society. They are dedicated to education and staffed by people who have a professional interest in learning and an expertise in their subjects. Most tutors and teachers are also trained in communicating ideas and working with groups of students. Yet, as we all know, learning also happens in everyday contexts and in haphazard and unstructured ways. This is especially true of young children who are finding out about the world around them and trying to make sense of it for the first time in their lives. By the time they come to school just about every one of them will have learnt their native language and come to understand many of the nuances of its grammar and syntax. They will have accomplished this extraordinary achievement without any formal instruction and without any externally imposed learning targets or achievement indicators.