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.