Abstract
To discuss the effectiveness of the use of talk in educational institutions, it is necessary to ask what the process of education is intended to achieve. There are many possible answers to this question, and little space here to consider them. A brief answer, and one that is probably acceptable to most people involved in education, would be that it is intended to (a) enable students to realize their intellectual potential; and (b) give students access to, and understanding of, the knowledge included in the curriculum. The quality of education, as it is carried out in schools and other institutions, is very dependent on how effectively talk is used in classrooms. The Russian psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896–1934) described language as the principal tool by which human societies create knowledge and understanding (Vygotsky, 1978): and like all tools, language can be used with varying degrees of skill.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Mercer, N. (1997). Effective Educational Talk. In: Davies, B., Corson, D. (eds) Oral Discourse and Education. Encyclopedia of Language and Education, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4417-9_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4417-9_18
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