'Moving Forward Together': Do we need a 'common language'?

Abstract

This article examines critically the implications of claiming that the National Literacy Stategy provides teachers and educationists with a common language with which to talk about literacy teaching and learning in the primary classroom. In particular, it examines the suggestion that teacher trainers should use the common language as the framework within which to teach trainee primary teachers about literacy.The article raises two questions: what is the nature of the common language offered by the National Literacy Stategy and should there be any one common language? The article criticises the functionality of the common language and suggests that, if a professed willingness to allow the literacy strategy to evolve is to occur, there are advantages for teachers and literacy teaching in being exposed to languages that dissent from the common language.