Understanding the teaching of "talk" in the secondary classroom

Support your students to improve their verbal communication skills by teaching different types of interactive talk. Talk then becomes a tool for thinking, as the students share and rehearse their ideas. The aim is to develop student contributions of an explanatory, justificatory or speculative kind, lessening factual recall, so they can best express their interpretations.

There are two resource to help you explore and improve your practice in this area:

• Understanding different types of talk: This guide explains the difference between types of talk, what they look like, what they sound like and ideas regarding how each type could be taught
• Talk reflection tool: Use this simple reflection tool to evaluate how you teach talk in the classroom