ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the place of talk in learning, and its relationship to literacy education. It demonstrates that educational linguistics provides powerful tools for making dialogic moves more visible so that they may be better understood with respect to their educational consequences. The book seeks to establish an ongoing dialogue between educational linguistics highlights points of similarity between these perspectives: their shared concerns educational outcomes; their recognition of the sociocultural nature of learning; and their shared emphasis on the centrality of language in educational processes. It describes metalinguistic understanding as 'the explicit bringing into consciousness of an attention to language as an artefact, and the conscious monitoring and manipulation of language to create desired meanings grounded in socially shared understandings'. The book explores what constitutes appropriate pedagogy for contemporary grammar teaching.
