Transcript Slide 1

It’s Good to Talk
Bradford Teachers’ Project
Day 2:
Teachers Talking
Aims of the Day
Exploring how whole class talk can be used to promote participation in
active learning, and how teachers can investigate classroom talk in
their own classrooms, including:

Exploring dialogic talk;

Patterns of classroom interaction;

Differential patterns of participation by students;

Strategies to promote the participation of learners in learning
interactions;

Investigating classroom talk and establishing how to take the project
forward.
Dialogic Talk

Monologic teacher – concerned to transmit knowledge; convey
information; and maintain control of talk

Dialogic teacher – concerned to create authentic exchanges,
learning through exploration and collaborative talk
Teachers’ concerns with what they want to teach sometimes means
pupils don’t learn.
‘However unequal the balance of knowledge between teacher and
learner, there is no way in which the knowledge of the teacher can
be transmitted directly to the learner.’ (Wells 1986)
Dialogic Talk

Socratic dialogue: a dialectal process in which teacher and student share a
joint inquiry in the search for a truth unknown to both parties.

Aims to promote critical thinking and inquiry.

By engaging in genuine dialogue with others, individuals can operate at a
higher level of thinking than would be possible on their own.

‘Dialogic teaching is distinct from the question-answer-tell routines of socalled ‘interactive’ teaching, aiming to be more consistently searching and
more genuinely reciprocal and cumulative’ Alexander 2004
Dialogic Teaching

Collective: teachers and children address learning tasks together, whether
as a group or class;

Reciprocal: teachers and children listen to each other, share ideas and
consider alternative viewpoints

Supportive: children articulate their ideas freely, without fear of
embarrassment over ‘wrong’ answers; and they help each other to reach
common understandings;

Cumulative: teachers and children build on their own and each other’s
ideas and chain them into coherent lines of enquiry;

Purposeful: teachers plan and steer classroom talk with specific
educational goals in view.
Robin Alexander
What does dialogic talk look like?

Children share a common goal or purpose

Children allow each other to speak

Children ask questions in order to understand better

Children paraphrase or reflect back each other’s words

Children are prepared to express uncertainty or tentativeness

Children try to make their own point as clearly as possible

Children explore differences of opinion

Children give arguments to support their ideas
Teachers Talk
Teacher-led whole class talk:

In primary, a child’s response averages 4 words

High-achievers volunteer more and are invited to answer more

Teachers’ questions need teachers’ answers

Interactive teaching generates limited interaction

An emphasis on pace leads to closed responses
So who talks?

Whole class talk tends not just to be teacher-led, but teacher
dominated

Teachers have a turn for every alternate utterance

Teachers’ contributions to the talk are longer and more extended

Teachers control the questions

Teachers control who answers
Talk Patterns

Recitation script: interaction-response-feedback

Table tennis: interaction-response-interaction-response

Teacher-child-teacher-child rather than teacher-child-child

Heavy use of teacher echoing and repetition

Teachers ask questions to find out what children know

Children don’t ask questions to find answers to things they don’t know
Participation Patterns

Classroom interaction patterns are predominantly teacher-initiated.

There is very little child-initiated interaction

The most frequent types of response are putting hands up, being
invited to answer questions and joining in collective responses.

There are more differences in engagement patterns in whole class
teaching between the achievement groups than between the gender
groups.

Low achievers are less engaged than high achievers in whole class
interactions.
Increasing Participation

create psychological safety (Pass; traffic lights …)

seating strategies (varied for purpose)

physical resources (whiteboards; cards; counters…)

randomising strategies (Talking Hat; bingo numbers..)

operate a ‘no hands up’ policy (teacher selection)

give thinking time (use IWB timer/egg timer…)

disrupt whole class talk with quick burst of pair or group talk

generate expectation of all responding (write down 2 things…)
Investigating
Classroom Talk
Collecting Evidence
WHY
HOW

Video data

Audio data – MP3 players

Classroom observation




Interviewing students about
what they have learnt

To inform reflective practice
To see or hear what often goes
unnoticed
To understand the student
perspective
To allow detailed analysis or
reflection
In your own classrooms
What talk activities happen?
 How well do they go?
 Who talks?
 What would you want to improve?
 What are your own strengths?

Teacher Reflections

Only a few children responded by putting their hands up.

I need to ensure as an outcome that all children are involved.

I would like to have more impact on the whole class.

Talk in my classroom is very much directed towards those children
who have the confidence to ‘put their hand up’.

I would like even more involvement.

I need to make a conscious effort to scan around the group more so
that these things [non-participation] don’t go unnoticed.
Teachers’ Voices



I have been able to adapt and refine my teaching
strategies to stimulate greater participation from my
class.
It has enabled me to consider the participation levels
within my own classroom and to reflect upon how
different curriculum areas, pairings, resources and the
types of talk can influence this participation.
It has enabled me to analyse the impact of different
teaching methods I already use and encouraged me to
try something new.
Video and audio data






Have a clear focus
Having someone operating the camera only draws
attention to it, once you have sorted out the best position
and camera angle, just press record
Be sure you know what the camera is capturing
Acclimatise the children to the camera by having it
around before you actually use it.
Sound quality in a noisy classroom!
Would audio data be just as good?
Interviewing children





Think about it as an opportunity for talk!
Could it be used as part of a talk activity?
Different players?
 Teacher – child
 Teacher – pair or group
 Child - child
 Older child – younger child
 Parent - child
What do you learn?
What does the child learn?
Focuses for Network Days
Day 3 Mar 2nd Questioning Learning: exploring how teachers can use
questioning to scaffold higher level thinking.
Day 4 May 6th Developing Listening: exploring how to support children in
becoming effective listeners
Day 5 July 13th From Talk to Text: exploring how talk can support the
development of writing.
Day 6 Oct 5th
Drawing on Prior Learning and Experience: exploring the
importance of students’ prior and out-of-school knowledge.
Day 7 Jan 18th Plenary day: Teacher Presentations and identifying the
next steps.
Next Network Day
Pre-session task:

Audio or video record three question and answer sessions;

Choose one to transcribe or transcribe all three;

Try to capture children’s responses too;

Bring transcript to the first Network Day.
Pedagogic dialogue:

Teacher-controlled, closed interaction with limited opportunities for
participation, reflection or extended contributions: the teacher owns
the truth and corrects error
Dialogic pedagogy:

Teacher-managed interaction in which the dialogue is all-important,
where children voice their own evaluative judgements, with an open
structure: a participatory mode