Editor: Viv Edwards (University of Reading, UK)
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Volume: 12 Number: 3 Page: 174–191
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Possible Enabling Strategies in Teacher-led Talk with Young Pupils
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Maureen Hughes and David Westgate
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It has been established that some teachers show themselves to be 'better' talk-partners for young pupils than others, in that they co-construct contexts in which the children are encouraged to play a wider
range of discourse roles and to put their talk to a wider range of communicative and cognitive purposes. It is less clear whether such 'enabling' styles in talking with young pupils,leading the children
for instance notjustto respond to their teacher's questions but to engage in some more interpretative or speculative talk, depend upon generally supportive strategies on the adult's part or whether any
more specific teacher discourse-moves can be identified as productive. Enquiry in this connection poses further questions of a methodological and analytical kind: how, for instance, might one claim to reveal
such features in any given speech-event involving teacher and pupils? The present paper attempts such an analysis of one extended recording in which the teacher talks with a group of four five-year-olds
for about 30 minutes. Some tentative conclusions are drawn concerning moves which appear to be linked to developing speculative, etc. talk-in one context at least.
© Multilingual Matters 1998
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