Post-16 English Teaching: From recitation to discussion

In an earlier study of the discourse styles of 10 teachers of post-16 English from the northeast of England it was found that teacher-led recitation dominated the classroom discourse thereby imposing linguistic and cognitive constraints on the students. In a follow-up study, four of the teachers were coached in the use of strategies designed to break the recitation script in order to promote wider communicative and more cognitively demanding options for the students. The findings of the current study support the use of such strategies as a means of developing the quality of classroom discourse in post-16 English teaching. The need for more extensive research into teacher/student interaction is considered, together with the need for rigorous measures of quality.