The findings suggested that difficulty with the recall of grammatical terminology was perceived as being highly significant, both by pupils and teachers. It was the most significant and consistent theme across both cases (and the pilot study). For example, in response to the question What do you think is hard about learning
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In remembering what they mean. (PG1,1:1) You can’t remember. (PG2,1:1)
Can’t remember it the next day. (PG1,2:1)
It is hard to remember the meaning of the word. (PG2,2:1)
From the pupils’ perspectives, this was regardless of writing proficiency and included those pupils who were able to write a taught definition and example in the pupil questionnaire and who demonstrated a higher level of metareflection in the pupil interviews. Therefore, while the higher proficiency writers were more articulate in explaining their difficulties with recall, the issue was still one of recall.
That said, the findings also suggested that the ability to recall looked different for different pupils (Pupil interviews, Teacher interviews) (see 5.2.4). Vygotsky (1998) posits that the relationship between memory and thinking is an inverted one for the young child, with the focus being always on remembering as much as possible, recalling concrete examples or concrete situations. As can be seen in Vygotsky’s stages of concept formation (see 5.2.4), the pupil does not yet possess the character of an abstraction and his definition of a concept is ‘to a large degree a product of recollection’ (Vygotsky 1998:95). Vygotsky writes:
The content of the thinking act in the child when defining such concepts is determined not so much by the logical structure of the concept itself as by the child’s concrete recollections. It is syncretic in character and reflects the fact that the child’s thinking depends first of all on his memory. (Vygotsky 1978:50)
The findings suggested that recall was often the first step in the sequence of steps (e.g. ‘Who can remember what we did last time?’), commandeering the pupil’s cognitive energies from the start and leaving less capacity for the more important, higher order tasks of, say, applying and analysing (Anderson and Krathwohl 2001). Thus, an unusual paradox seems evident in which the teachers may have inadvertently reinforced “recall as a way of thinking”, which may have reduced the cognitive space available for the intended higher order thinking, thereby limiting the development of true concept formation over time (Vygotsky 1987:122).
This paradox would seem to be bound up in the notion of automaticity typically associated with recall as the lowest-order skill. Adams (2015:152) cites knowing multiplication tables by rote as a qualitatively different type of thinking than applying multiplication skills through solving “word problems” (ibid). She posits that this recall skill reflects ‘Knowledge’: the lowest-order skill of six cognitive skills in Bloom’s classification system (Bloom et al. 1956). Adams argues that knowledge ‘can be assessed by straightforward means, for example, multiple choice or short-answer questions that require the retrieval or recognition of information’ i.e. simple recall of facts.
This can be related to the context of the SPaG test (DfE 2013b) and perhaps explains why many pupils perceived this test as being “easy”. However, a technical report on ‘English, Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling Test’ (Standards and Testing Agency 2013:42-43) suggests that this ease of recall knowledge was not the case for test questions requiring Knowledge of technical language (KTL). The report found that: (i) there was a marked difference in pupil performance between questions requiring KTL and those not requiring KTL (even for the same word class) and that (ii) questions without KTL were considerably easier to answer correctly than those with KTL. The report concluded that, despite the marked difference, questions with KTL
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were not cognitively more demanding but suggested instead that they had a higher working memory requirement. Therefore, questions requiring recall of grammatical terminology were harder to answer correctly due to their higher working memory requirement.
This suggests that a pupil’s natural tendency towards, and reliance upon, recall as a way of thinking is stymied further by the very nature of grammatical terminology which, given its highly abstract form, does not lend itself easily to providing the pupil with tangible “concrete recollections”. When Vygotsky writes: ‘For the young child, to think means to recall; but for the adolescent, to recall means to think’ (1978:50), it suggests that this difficulty may lead to confusion, frustration, anxiety for some pupils as they try to resolve this; as they try to remember while at the same time trying to actively think. This was reflected in the teachers’ comments such as:
Oh well you can try this word and you could try that.' but they're too busy focused on 'Oh what's an adjective, I don't know what an adjective is.' or whatever it might be. (T1,1:1)
Therefore, it may be that the highly abstract nature of grammatical terminology renders it unavailable for automatic recall as a typical lower-order skill (at least for primary pupils). This possibility could be hugely significant, resulting in a misdirection of the emphasis of pedagogical approaches, strategies and resources at the point of application. It suggests that the teacher needs to better support the pupils in the process of recall in order to free up the cognitive space needed for emerging intellectual thinking processes. Therefore, the expectation that remembering will become automatic over time (see 5.4.4), and at that point recalled easily as the first step in the process of application, could be misguided.
According to one pupil’s metareflections, remembering was harder than understanding. At the point of teaching this lower attaining writer felt able to understand the grammatical terminology and thereby remember it. However, after a period of time, and in spite of this initial understanding, he found he was unable to remember it: ‘Because when I understand then I remember them, but then after a bit I don’t remember them.’ It was interesting that this pupil was able to distinguish between the two processes of understanding and remembering and that he seemed to position ‘understanding’ before ‘recall’ as an intellectual process. Ultimately, it was the barrier of the so-called “lower order” skill of recall that was problematic and not that of understanding.
In order to try to maximise pupils’ automatic recall at the point of use and minimise any negative impact on self-esteem, the findings suggested that a range of resources were made available. The pupils were positive about the resources available in their classrooms to support their learning, although expressed their frustrations when “working walls” were too small to see or were changed too soon to accommodate new topics.
This reflects Vygotsky’s overarching position on the importance of mediation and his view that with the use of tools, especially psychological “tools” or “signs”, human activity can be mediated. He maintains that the higher psychological functions of humans such as memory and cognition are a product of this mediated activity within the socio-historical context (Vygotsky 1987). In order to organise these ideas, Wertsch (2007:61)
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differentiates between two general types of mediation, which he calls ‘explicit mediation’ and ‘implicit mediation’. While implicit mediation in the form of language (e.g. modelling provided by teacher and pupil talk; practice exercises in Basic/Key skills sessions) has been discussed, explicit mediation has not and so will be considered separately here.
Explicit mediation typically involves artificially and intentionally introduced cultural tools. Within this study, the findings from a range of sources (observations, interviews and questionnaires) suggested that the lessons were rich in resources that would seem effective in enhancing learning by supporting the pupils’ memory, concept formation, attention and motivation and interest, such as handouts, examples and colour-coded cards. It also enabled the pupils to work independently of the teacher, with the “help” of the teacher being “invisibly present” (Vygotsky, 1987:216). This reflected the teachers’ awareness of the challenge of recall, understanding and application of grammatical word meanings, especially for the lower attaining pupils.
However, this did not come without dilemmas. The teachers were troubled by how this was positioned in relation to their wider literacy practice and principles e.g. one teacher pulled back from designing a personalised resource for each pupil (which, given the pupils’ responses in the group interview, would have probably been very well received) as she feared this was a step too close to the creation of a SPaG test revision aid.
Final assertion 12: Unmediated recall was perceived as the most difficult aspect of all by pupils (across the writing attainment range) and teachers, and the highly abstract nature of grammatical terminology suggested that “remembering” did not precede “understanding” as an intellectual process.