1. Improving the quality of talk and questioning to support pupil learning

2. Key issue addressed by the study
This research was designed to:
help teachers understand how they might improve their questioning skills
involve pupils more in lessons
use talk to develop pupils’ thinking and understanding

3. How did teachers and pupils interact in whole class teaching?
The dominant interaction pattern was teacher-child-teacher-child
Questions with predetermined answers meant teachers missed opportunities for supporting learning through helping pupils to make connections between what they already knew and new ideas

4. How could teachers use talk to extend the children’s thinking?
Generating and extending pupil thinking requires sensitive shaping of the classroom dialogue and sensitive listening to pupils’ responses

5. How did teachers generate and extend pupil thinking?
They planned the first question in a sequence carefully
But considered how subsequent questioning might extend and support learning and understanding

6. Example of teachers’ extending children’s thinking
Using a simple strategy of enquiring about possible reasons, the teacher elicited a more extended response to a question about why a boy hit his brother

7. Example of teacher extending children’s thinking
Teacher: Why do you do it?
Child: I don’t know
Teacher: Did you do it to hurt him? Had he made you cross?
Child: No he kept bugging me so he was walking along the garden and I lobbed it and it just bounced off the top of his head.

8. Which pupils were most involved during whole class teaching?:
High achievers, especially girls, put their hands up and joined in collective responses
Low achievers and boys were more likely to be off task

9. Strategies for maximising participation of all pupils:
Teachers can increase all pupils’ involvement through:
a ‘no hands up policy’
inviting children to draw and reflect on personal experiences

10. Who were the children in the study?
The researchers observed Year 2 pupils from three first schools and Year 6 pupils from three primary schools

11. How was the information gathered?
The researchers videoed 15 minute teaching episodes during literacy, numeracy and one other curriculum area
Other data were also collected:
observations of sample pupils using structured schedules to capture verbal and non-verbal responses
teacher reflections using video as prompt
notes made by researchers recording factors such as friendships and classroom interruptions
First

12. The video recordings captured:
The teacher’s talk
The pupils’ responses
The pupils’ non-verbal interactions

13. How can teachers use the evidence in this study?
The study found that it was effective to plan questions without predetermined answers.
You might want to ask a colleague to observe your whole class teaching session to note the types of questions you ask and their impact on the quality of pupils’ answers.
Could you include key questions in your lesson planning, along with prompts you could use to extend pupils’ answers?

14. How can school leaders use the evidence in this study?
The study found that the key point about helping colleagues to develop their questioning skills was to improve the quality of the dialogue
Could you encourage your staff to practice their questioning skills by taking part in role plays with each other or discussing and reflecting on video recordings of classroom episodes?

15. Follow-up reading
Study reference: Myhill, D. (2006) Talk,talk,talk: Teaching and learning in whole class discourse Research Papers in Education Vol. 21, No. 1 pp