Neil Mercer - Exploring Talk in Schools: Inspired by the Work of Douglas Barnes

Inspired by the Work of Douglas Barnes

edited by

Neil Mercer
and
Steve Hodgkinson

Introduction and Editorial Arrangement Neil Mercer and Steve Hodgkinson 2008

Douglas Barnes 2008

Phil Scott 2008

Kathryn M. Pierce and Carol Gilles 2008

Neil Mercer and Lyn Dawes 2008

Yvette Solomon and Laura Black 2008

Robin Alexander 2008

Judith Green, Beth Yeager and Maria Castanheira 2008

Frank Hardman 2008

Courtney Cazden 2008

Gordon Wells and Tamara Ball 2008

First published 2008

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Steve Hodgkinson and Neil Mercer

Douglas Barnes

Phil Scott

Kathryn M. Pierce and Carol Gilles

Neil Mercer and Lyn Dawes

Yvette Solomon and Laura Black

Pedagogy Robin Alexander

Judith Green, Beth Yeager and Maria Castanheira

Frank Hardman

Courtney Cazden

Gordon Wells and Tamara Ball

Robin Alexander
Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Professor of Education Emeritus, University of Warwick
Director of the Primary Review
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom

Tamara Ball
Ph.D. Candidate, Education Department
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of California at Santa Cruz
United States of America

Douglas Barnes
Former Reader in Education
School of Education
University of Leeds
United Kingdom

Laura Black
Lecturer in Literacy
School of Education
University of Manchester
United Kingdom

Maria Lucia Castanheira
Faculdade de Educao
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais
Brazil

Courtney B Cazden
Charles William Eliot Professor of Education, Emerita
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Harvard University
United States of America

Lyn Dawes
Senior Lecturer in Education
School of Education
University of Northampton
United Kingdom

Carol Gilles
Associate Professor of Reading and Language Arts
College of Education
University of Missouri-Columbia
United States of America

Judith Green
Professor of Education
Gevirtz School of Education
University of California at Santa Barbara
United States of America

Frank Hardman
Professor in Educational Studies
Centre for Language Learning Research
School of Education Studies
University of York
United Kingdom

Steve Hodgkinson
Research Fellow
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy
University Hospital Ulm
Germany

Neil Mercer
Professor of Education &Fellow of Hughes Hall
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom

Kathryn Mitchell Pierce
Writing Instructional Support Specialist
Wydown Middle School
Clayton, Missouri
United States of America

Phil Scott
Professor of Science Education
School of Education
University of Leeds
United Kingdom

Yvette Solomon
Reader
Department of Educational Research
Lancaster University
United Kingdom

Gordon Wells
Professor of Education
Faculty of Social Sciences
University of California at Santa Cruz
United States of America

Beth Yeager
Director, Center for Education Research
Gevirtz Graduate School of Education
University of California at Santa Barbara
United States of America

Steve Hodgkinson and Neil Mercer

One could be forgiven for thinking that the single greatest challenge facing children as they grow up in the twenty-first century is how they can become productive members of an increasingly technological society. Certainly many school curricula reflect the importance placed on children understanding the application of innovation, technology and their interconnectedness in our global society. That said, we perhaps take too much for granted a more fundamental aspect of the human condition: our use of language, principally speech, to communicate with each other. This is particularly important in the formative years of our development, including the many years we spend as children in school.

Classroom talk, by which children make sense of what their peers and teachers mean, has been the subject of school-based educational research for more than forty years now. In that time, its significance has been redefined as individualistic, cognitive theories of learning gave way to more social, culturally located interpretations of learning. It is now appreciated that classroom talk is not merely a conduit for the sharing of information, or a means for controlling the exuberance of youth; it is the most important educational tool for guiding the development of understanding and for jointly constructing knowledge. As the chapters in this book will make clear, research has provided a wealth of good reasons why policy makers and teachers should give more attention to improving the quality of classroom talk.

More than thirty years ago, when this field of research was still in its infancy, Douglas Barnes wrote From Communication to Curriculum, a succinct account of the kinds of classroom talk he observed in a Leeds secondary school. He noted that often the odds were stacked against pupils being able to use talk productively in the classroom, because of the rigid and formalised way teachers required children to engage in dialogue. Since then, the book has become a core text for the more enlightened initial teacher education courses, and the clear but profound message that it conveyed has reverberated across time. Today, the relevance of the ideas expressed in it is an enduring legacy of the work of Douglas Barnes, and a source of inspiration for the many educationalists who have adopted his ideas in their own work.

In this book, we have gathered together some of those leading educationalists who have been inspired by Douglass work, and asked them to write about their own work on classroom talk. In doing so, we have been conscious of the need to bridge what often seems like a vast conceptual gulf between practitioners and researchers a gulf that Douglas bridged so well. Hence, each of the contributions locates the research firmly within the practice of classroom teaching, and outlines practical steps that may be taken to develop effective classroom interaction in many different contexts.