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Despite the potential benefits of partnership teaching, as distinct from collaborative teaching and support teaching, evidence from the Midlands and West of England suggests that full partnership teaching between a class teacher and language support teacher of English as an Additional Language is rare, though collaboration is increasing. Occasionally both teachers are centre-stage, and partnership talk, where two teachers together teach the class, occurs. Drawing on Christie's theory of regulative and instructional registers in curriculum genres, this paper analyses part of a Year 1 social studies lesson where the language support teacher moves from a silent, scribing role, through responding, then nomination and feedback moves in the regulative register, to initiating content and directing beautifully choreographed action centre-stage in the instructional register. This analysis forms the basis of a framework of variables that characterise a proposed continuum from support talk through collaborative talk to partnership talk. The analysis and interpretation of such teacher–teacher classroom talk when it does occur arguably constitutes an essential basis for understanding how language support relationships are realised and develop for the adults and children involved.
