ABSTRACT
This chapter examines some ways in which teachers maintain classroom order in conventional 'chalk and talk' teaching in secondary school classrooms. It draws particular attention to the ways in which teachers organize pupil participation in class as a way of transmitting knowledge which also secures their attention to the task in hand. The teacher monitors pupil behaviour and sometimes when he detects inattention he will look up from working at his desk or interrupt his discourse in order to demand attention. Pupils are not wholly restricted to offering answers to teacher questions; they do make initiatives, again sometimes inserting them in gaps they hope are adequate, sometimes trying to summon the teacher. The teachers insist on their control of pupil initiatives, as on their control of pupil answers, in order to control the setting and maintenance of topic.
