Throughout this study, I have been able to critically reflect on my own assumptions about grammatical terminology and the ways in which this may be manifested in the primary classroom. This study has been framed as exploratory, and I believe it has been genuinely so. It has enabled me, through the perspectives of pupils and their teachers, to better understand some of the complexities and contradictions around and within
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grammatical terminology: to be able at last (aside from any statutory requirements or SPaG test) to answer the research question of my own students from years ago: “Do we really need to teach these terms?” (see 1.1). Through the theoretical lens of Vygotsky (1987) and the methodological lens of Stake (2006), I have come to better understand the phenomenon of grammatical terminology within the complex context of teaching and learning. I have learned that the “either/or” binaries (e.g. of declarative/procedural; prescriptive/descriptive; explicit/implicit; decontextualised/contextualised) should be perceived positively, as it is through the discourse in between these dialectical polarities that pedagogy can be better understood. So when the pupils spoke positively of having “only one thing at once” to think about and Vygotsky (1987) wrote about the meaning of a word being recontextualised by new experiences and gradually decontextualised, my perception of “decontextualised: bad” versus “contextualised: good” was re-considered. In the end, my focus shifted away from trying to negotiate which of the polarities might be “right” and which might be “wrong" in favour of exploring the discourse space in between. In this way, Vygotsky’s view that ‘one must study psychological activity in all its complexity, not in isolation’ was known (Wertsch 1985:185).
Through this research, there have been many other significant shifts in my conceptualisations of grammatical terminology. For example, I now better understand why pupils might not be able to identify the adjectives in a sentence in spite of ‘doing this all year’ (Teacher), leading me to conclude the importance of mediational tools to support recall and, thereby, free up cognitive space for pupils to consider meaning and effect. As a student of English literature myself, there was much I lacked linguistically at the start of this study. That said, for me, the significance and the interest lay first and foremost in the grammatical terminology than in the more familiar notions of grammar for writing. The field of applied linguistics seemed notably absent from the associated research literature. There is much for the teacher to learn here that will be of great value to their developing conceptual understanding and, ultimately, to their own intellectual pedagogical freedoms. At this point, I am reminded of the teacher in the study who felt there was ‘no difference really’ between what a pupil should know and what a teacher should know and I now understand that, in a way, this is where I once was. But, in fact, there is so much more to know that will support and extend teachers’ linguistic understanding and free up
their creative thinking. Therefore, as a researcher, I too have journeyed from “sense” to “meaning” and,
through that, I am now able to verbalise what previously I could only perceive. I am now more capable of moving back and forth, horizontally and vertically, over the field that pertains to grammatical terminology. According to Vygotsky, this signals the ‘transition to a new and higher plane of thought’ (1987:230) with which I would absolutely agree.
This study has, of course, also been seen through the lens of many others, namely those of teachers and pupils. As a researcher, I have been in the privileged position of observing and discussing teaching and learning in classrooms, working with teachers who were wholeheartedly committed to creating for their pupils the highest quality learning experiences. Equally, their commitment to their own professional development was very high (hence their interest in this study) and they shared openly with me their perceptions and practices, including their constraints and tensions, as they themselves tried to mediate the spaces in between prescriptive expectation and their own descriptive philosophy and practice. Their involvement has afforded me so much.
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I have also learned about pupil conviction, insight, energy and enthusiasm for learning; about their capacity to rise to a challenge; to evaluate teaching and learning openly and perceptively; and to supplement this readily with their own alternative pedagogical inventions and ideas. As genuine participants in this exploratory study, I have realised that I had underestimated them greatly. While every effort was made methodologically to support their engagement in ways that did not limit them to words, they demonstrated that, in spite of the intangible, complex and abstract nature of grammatical terminology, they had much to say and much to offer – telling me upon leaving the pupil interviews that they had enjoyed the experience of doing so.
Thus, my contribution to knowledge is a collaborative one, reflecting something of the socially-mediated (intermental) and the individually-mediated (intramental) about which Vygotsky writes (1978:57). It is a compilation of perspectives, from the personal to the social and back again; from the theoretical, to the methodological, to the empirical, to the theoretical. It is indeed the ebb and flow of ideas over time. What will be made of this thesis is ultimately in the hands - or rather the minds - of its readers and the lens through which they perceive the findings. Perhaps this is the most significant lens of all and it is hoped that, through the way in which this thesis has been written, it has assisted the reader in developing their own meanings (Stake 1995:126).