Here, at "FORUM's" invitation, is the text of the 2014 Godfrey Thomson Trust public lecture at the University of Edinburgh. Its backdrop is the centralisation of educational decision-making in England since 1988 and the power and patronage exercised by the Secretary of State. Taking as examples recent policies on childhood, curriculum…

Increased immigration in Europe and worldwide has led to more pre- and primary school students being educated through the medium of a second language, and there is considerable research, much of it coming from Australia, to suggest that in order to cope with this situation, children will need to begin to acquire, from their earliest years in…

This study investigated whether instruction aimed to heighten awareness of narrative structure would enhance fifth-grade children's use of story elements during comprehension and composition. Results are discussed. (Author/MT)

Studied aspects of listening comprehension skills in 107 second, fourth, and sixth graders in Finland using the Sentence Verification technique. Findings, comparable with previous research, show age-related improvement in listening comprehension for narrative, but not expository, passages. Cluster analysis produced four comprehension strategies.…

The conversational narratives of 17 Japanese children aged 5 to 9 were analyzed using stanza analysis. Three distinctive features emerged: (1) the narratives are exceptionally succinct; (2) they are usually free-standing collections of three experiences; and (3) stanzas almost always consist of three lines. These features reflect the basic…

Describes narrative activity in Spanish in a children's religious education class composed of Mexican immigrants at a Catholic parish in Los Angeles. Describes how students and their teacher collaborate in constructing a multiplicity of identities in an ongoing narrative within an oppressive colonial past in Mexico. (31 references) (Author/CK)

The narrative structure of a classroom event describes the order in which the story of the event unfolds. This paper compares the narrative structure of a traditional classroom to that of a communicative classroom. The comparison is made in the form of a drama in which a communicative mathematics spokesperson relates the comparative mathematics…

The elementary social studies curriculum should be restructured in a way that promotes a broader study of people, places, and events that are distant in space and time. The "Expanding Horizons" framework guides social studies curriculum in New Brunswick, as well as in many other Canadian provinces and the United States. It emphasizes moving from…

Examines the ways that adult narrators address the child reader in fictions written for children in moral education. Analyzes these relationships and considers their pedagogical implications. Specifically considers the personification of children's behavior by animals in these stories and connects this to a shift in the contemporary concept of…

This collection of articles on the nature of discourse and writing instruction include: "Une demarche de psychologie de discours; quelques aspects introductifs" ("An Application of Discourse Psychology; Introductory Thoughts") (Jean-Paul Bronckart); "Les procedes de prise en charge enonciative dans trois genres de texts expositifs" ("The Processes…

To help children better understand and exert control over the use of narrative language, teachers need not only to devote time to children's literature, but also need to emphasize other narrative forms including the mass media and children's own stories (in their talk, writing, drawing, and play). Giving children experience in mass media…