Balance between incidental intervention and planned lessons

Teaching about language may take place with individual children as suitable opportunities present themselves; or it may be done in a planned lesson with a group, or even with the whole class. Both kinds of teaching have their value.

Discussion of each point with individual children ensures that the teaching has immediate relevance. In a busy, mixed-ability classroom, however, it may be prohibitively time-consuming. Also, immediate relevance is not the only goal. Teaching must prepare children for the challenges to come, and it must help them see that language has a system.

Planned lessons should, of course, be relevant to children’s language needs at the time, ands they should be motivating and interesting in themselves.

Incidental intervention and planned lessons should therefore be complementary.

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