ABSTRACT
In this chapter and the following we describe an approach to teaching children how to use language to think together. As you will see, by encouraging children’s awareness and use of talk as a thinking tool, teachers can help them to develop intellectual habits that will not only help them in their study of the curriculum but should also serve them well across a diverse range of situations. At the heart of the approach is the negotiation by each teacher and class of a set of ‘ground rules’ for talking and working together. These ground rules then become established as a set of principles for how the children will collaborate in groups. The ground rules effectively open up and maintain an intersubjective space in which alternative solutions to problems are generated and allowed to develop and compete as ideas, without threatening either group solidarity or individual identity. We have described this approach in several other, earlier publications (in particular Mercer, 2000; Mercer et al., 1999; Wegerif, Mercer et al., 1999; Dawes, 2005; Littleton et al., 2005): but in recent times we have extended its application to a broader age range of children and it has been used in a wider range of cultural settings. The work of other independent researchers has also enabled us to develop its principles and improve its procedures. As we will see in Chapter 6, there is now a strong body of evidence for its effectiveness.
