ABSTRACT
In a recent QCA sponsored discussion of classroom discourse (QCA 2003), a leading researcher proposed that
most classroom talk … involves a centralized communication system. Teachers direct the talk by doing most of it themselves, combining lengthy exposition with many questions, allocating the right or obligation to answer those questions and evaluating the answers. The transmission of knowledge creates very unequal communication rights to those who know and those who do not. This is why the sequence of (teacher) initiation – (pupil) response – (teacher) evaluation has emerged from so many research studies as the ‘essential teaching exchange’.
