ABSTRACT

During the seventies a highly significant change in attitude to children’s talk occurred, a change which moved talk from something to be forbidden to something to be encouraged at all costs. As part of that change, many teachers had moved away from the dominant position at the front of the classroom, which research had shown them inhibited children’s talk (Barnes, 1969), and had set up situations in which the children could talk to each other freely. By the middle of the decade they were in general agreement with the sociolinguists who suggested that the children’s own language should be valued in school (Halliday, 1974; Stubbs, 1976b). As the decade finished most teachers were ready to acknowledge that children’s talk was “a good thing!’ but they were not quite sure where the talking was going. In the eighties that uncertainty has become more noticeable. It is not that those who teach today are any less sensitive to the need to promote children’s confidence in using talk, rather the contrary. They have, however, moved beyond the belief that it is sufficient simply to ensure that there is plenty of talk going on, and are looking for ways of promoting children’s spoken language development within that framework. They want to know how they might move off the sidelines to intervene constructively in that developmental process. They are looking once again for a teaching role.