International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Too Much Talk
Padraig MacAogain a *
ª Lecturer in the UK
Abstract
Talking is vital. It has an important role in personal growth. It allows us to make relationships with each other,
to express our feelings moods and attitudes-in short, to express our personality. Talk is also crucial in enabling
us to be fully functional members of a community (Barnes, 2008). The speech of our community may be
reflected in our dialect, accent and expression but through talking and listening to others, we also learn about the
social purposes of talk, the need to take turns listening to others we also learn about the social purposes of talk
the need to take turns and the conventions of spoken etiquette and when it is appropriate to use our local dialect
or to choose formal or informal language. Finally talk is essential to the development of thought.
Keywords.
INTRODUCTION
A great deal of school room learning is accompanied by talking. The questions that teachers and pupils ask
and answer orally give insight into the progress of learning and into the types of learning which the teacher
deems most important. With the impending curriculum in the UK emerging in 2014 the question of classroom
talk is a major focus of this. Both the National Numeracy and Literacy Strategies have emphasised the
importance of interactive whole class teaching whether ‘pupils are expected to play an active part by answering
questions, contributing points to discussion and by explaining and demonstrating their methods and solutions to
others in the class’ (DfES, 2014). The aim is to increase the quality of teaching and learning within the primary
classroom in a way which engages and motivates pupils and demands active participation. English et al. (2002)
argue that one of the aims behind the focus on ‘interactive whole class teaching’ is to reduce the extent to which
teachers dominate discussions, since pupil participation has been linked to academic success in international
competition. Alexander (2000) takes this further to suggest that ‘interactive whole class teaching’ is seen as ‘the
X factor which would do for primary education in the UK what it has done for education and indeed economic
performance in continental Europe and South –east Asia (Alexander 2000; 391).
To enhance the role of talk in developing learning requires interaction patterns which reduce the teacher’s role
as orchestrator or controller of classroom talk, and instead reposition the teacher as an enabler of talk for
thinking. Qugotsky’s belief (1972) that language is fundamental to the process of learning and upon the complex
interplay of thought and language in shaping meaning is at the heart of any consideration of how classroom talk
promotes learning. Talk is both ‘a medium for teaching and learning’ and ‘one of the materials form which a
child constructs meaning’ (Edwards and Mercer, 1987, p.20); in other words, talk is not only a product which
can be formally assessed (as in the English National Curriculum) but also a process, a tool for learning. Howe
(1992) summarises this potential under three headings; formulation- the way talk can crystallise thought and
shape ideas; reformulation-the way talk can clarify and focus ideas; communication-the way talk can be used to
reflect upon learning. Togogg’s notion of guided participation offers an alternative discourse framework in
which children’s interactions with others, including the teacher ‘assists children in their development by guiding
their participation in relevant activities, helping them to adapt their understanding to new situations’ (1991,
p.191). In a similar vein, Mercer (2000) sees teachers potentially as ‘discourse guides guiding children into ways
of using language of thinking collectively’. Alexander (2004) has advocated the use of dialogic teaching which
aims to be ‘more consistently searching and more genuinely active’ teaching. Alexander’s comparisons of
pedagogy in primary education across Europe found that in many European cultures talk is used considerably
more as a basis for learning than in the UK and ‘classroom talk is seen as mainly cognitive, whereas in England
it tends to be seen as a primarily casual or affective (Alexander, 2004, p.15).
But what are the factors that influence the occurrence of effective interactive teaching in the classroom? And do
we identify such factors within a research context?. Research on classroom discourse over the past three decades
has been primarily concerned with how teachers and pupils use talk most effectively to construct meaning and
E-mail address: eganp2@hotmail.com
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