If we do in the future see a generation of teachers emerge with a lively and critical understanding of the role of language in the ways we mean, and hence in the ways children work and think in schools, we will witness considerable change in the ways teachers and children work together. . . Language will become no longer the hidden curriculum of schooling. Instead, its essential role in the structuring and organising of experience and information will be properly acknowledged. Whatever the age group taught, whatever the "content" of concern, whatever the mental skills to be developed, teachers will be able to consider and answer the question: What is it that my students need to be able to do in language order to be successful in this learning activity. (Christie, 1985)