Style Pedagogy for English Language Teaching in Secondary School: A Project in Educational Design

Style is a branch of rhetoric concerned with the effective expression of ideas on the sentence level. It builds on grammatical knowledge to explore expressive options and reveal the stylistic choices of practiced writers. This project aims at understanding and innovating style pedagogy for language teaching in the context of the English subject in secondary school. Research questions include the following: (1) What is stylistic ability and how does it pertain to the educational goals of the English subject in secondary school? (2) How does style pedagogy promote language learning and writing development, especially in regard to sentence-level expression? (3) Is style pedagogy a viable alternative to current practices for teaching grammar in the context of English language teaching in secondary school? (4) If so, how can style pedagogy be established in practice and sustained in schools? Research questions 3 and 4 require close-to-practice problem solving. These are explored in collaboration with small groups of secondary school English teachers.

The research orientation of this project is educational design research, a form of close-to-practice research that aims to produce usable knowledge (both theoretical and practical) for teachers, teacher educators, and researchers working in a specific educational context. The aim is to develop theoretical insight into the role of stylistic ability in language learning while simultaneously developing practical solutions to pedagogical problems related to sentence-level expression. Collaboratively developed solutions are tested in iterative classroom interventions, which participating teachers conduct and refine.