Strategic voices? Problems in developing oracy through ‘interactive whole‐class teaching’

This article considers what is meant by ‘interactive whole‐class teaching’, a central component of the British Government's primary and secondary Literacy Strategies. Drawing on published research evidence and a case‐study undertaken in a London comprehensive school, this essay suggests that contradictions in government policy have led to an increase in the kind of whole‐class teaching which offers an impoverished model of classroom discourse. Alternative models of pupil–teacher interaction are discussed. However, the article concludes that the current ideological imperative to deliver a literacy ‘quick‐fix’ is inimical to the conditions necessary to foster genuinely dialogic classroom talk.