ABSTRACT
There are many reasons for expecting that secondary school science lessons will have a strong social character. The age of silent pupils working at separate desks under threat of immediate punishment for any unsolicited word to a neighbour is over. Some may mourn its passing, but gone it is. In the UK the 1989 National Curriculum for science gives its official recognition to the value of working in groups (DES, 1989). In the laboratory there are simply not the resources for each pupil to have a set of experimental equipment, so group activity has become the norm to such an extent that few can now recall whether it was expediency or design that first promoted collaborative practical work. Groups of pupils are bound to interact together, and so it has come about that silence has been vanquished by various kinds of pupil talk some of which are positively encouraged by teachers.
