ABSTRACT
This chapter explores one's own attitudes to language and grammar. Teachers need a properly complicated model of language and language development. Education and schooling are just one part of a complex set of relationships that shapes our language and our views about language. The purpose of language autobiography is to help teachers to reflect on their own development as a language user so that they can come to a better understanding of pupil's development with, through and in language. The 'grammar game' helps one to think about the place of English grammar in communication, spoken as well as written. This activity was devised by Michael Swan in his book Grammar. Grammar can mean a metalanguage. Some helpful pieces of metalanguage: phonology; morphology; lexis; syntax. Jokes are one kind of 'text in the world' another kind includes a speech. The chapter includes an extract from the beginning of Earl Spencer's speech at the funeral of his sister, Lady Diana Spencer.
