Spoken language in the classroom: the medium and the message
Professor Neil Mercer (nmm31@cam.ac.uk), Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge
I will explain what recent research has told us about the relationship between language experience and cognitive development, and how involvement in spoken dialogue can help develop students’ skills of reasoning and their subject learning. I will then describe how the findings of this research provide support for encouraging what some of the most successful teachers already do in their classrooms. Finally, I discuss the implications for teachers’ professional development, school leadership and the improvement of classroom practice in general.
Thursday, 30 June, 12.00-13.00
Bio
Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, and Director of the centre Oracy@Cambridge. He is a Life Fellow of the Cambridge college Hughes Hall, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cumbria and a Visiting Fellow of the English Language Institute of Singapore. His research is concerned with how talk is used for collective thinking and learning, and how schools can best enable the development of young people’s spoken language and reasoning abilities. With Lyn Dawes and Rupert Wegerif, he developed the Thinking Together approach to developing talk for learning in the classroom, and he has worked internationally with teachers, researchers and policy makers. His books include The Guided Construction of Knowledge, Words and Minds, Exploring Talk in School, (and with Karen Littleton) Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking and Interthinking: putting talk to work.