knowledge about language

A term which emerged in the 1980s, along with its acronym KAL /kal/, to identify a strategic goal of EDUCATIONAL LINGUISTIC work in the UK. It involved the fostering of an increased awareness of the STRUCTURE and FUNCTION of spoken and written LANGUAGE by children as they move through the school curriculum. Although an essential element in linguistic approaches to language study for many years, the notion received a fresh lease of life from the report published by the Committee of Inquiry into English Language Teaching (known as the Kingman Report) in 1988, and the subsequent development of the country’s National Curriculum in English, in which a range of targets for developing LANGUAGE AWARENESS was specified.