ABSTRACT
When children start to talk they acquire a powerful means of organising their thinking and of communicating with others. Across the curriculum, talk between teacher and child accompanying learning to read and learning to write is a powerful facilitator of progress. In English lessons children have the opportunity to integrate ideas and knowledge about the things that matter to them and to express their feelings about all of this. If asked to say what are the kinds of speaking and listening at the very heart of the English lessons, teachers would respond with the following: oral story-telling (including anecdotes told by teachers and children); improvised drama; talk about fiction. This chapter first deals with these three factors. However, the kind of talk that helps planning, debate and assessment is also an important part of the English curriculum, and it is this kind of talk that is taken up in the later part of the chapter.
