Resources - Discussion Papers

Lessons from the Classroom:
What we learn about effective pedagogy from teacher-student interactions

Christine Edwards-Groves, Catholic Schools Office, Wagga Wagga, NSW

A keynote address presented at the 2001 AATE/ALEA Joint National Conference

ABSTRACT

Lessons from the classroom — what can we learn about ourselves, our teaching, and what our students learn, by closely looking at the interactions in the very context in which we work? What does looking at classroom transcripts teach us about effective literacy practices? classroom life? professional growth?

Teachers have always understood the critical significance of good teaching to their student’s learning. However the practical question for teachers is what this looks like in actual classroom lessons and how they shape a culture of authentic learning in schools, which prepares young people for tomorrow’s world. Essentially, this paper establishes what lessons can be learned about literacy practices by looking at classroom talk. It simply focuses on the efficacy of classroom literacy lessons by assembling the information about what is and can be accomplished by the talk of the classroom and by demystifying the importance of teacher-student interactions through transcript technology. The essential elements of classrooms literacy practice are unpacked and highlighted in terms of its relationship to interactive practices. The topics of talk (what is the focus of the talk in literacy lessons) and the structure of lessons are reviewed. There is a need for teachers to become involved in shaping the directions of change at the fundamental level of practice in the best interests of their students, and so the important implications for professional development are highlighted.

KEY WORDS

Classroom Interaction, Literacy Teaching, Lessons, Explicit Teaching, Principles, Professional Development

INTRODUCTION

Effective teaching and learning of literacy is a primary matter of concern for contemporary Australian society and one leading much of the educational discourse into this century. Teachers in the day-to-day reality of the classroom are constantly faced with the challenge of designing and implementing quality literacy instruction. Although we all come to this task with a core ambition to improve students’ literacy learning outcomes that will ensure a literate future, the complexities of classroom life and the demands of new curriculum and policy continually confront, and sometimes override, these everyday teaching and learning encounters. What we teach, how we teach it and how well we teach are main issues that have led to decades of widespread debate. The perennial recurrence of the debate has led educational administrations at the levels of state, system and school to respond to this challenge in a number of ways.

Recently, in response to this issue, particular government bodies have commissioned reviews to report on the expectations and directions of teacher education and provide recommendations to improve the quality of pedagogy (see eg, Quality Matters-Revitalising Teachers: Critical times, critical choices, Ramsey, NSW, 2000). The formulation of specific guidelines describing the principles and practices underpinning effective learning and teaching, for example, have also been promoted in the documentation of many education systems across Australia over the past decade (see eg, Principles of Effective Learning and Teaching, Dep of QLD, 1994; Today’s Children: Tomorrow’s Adults, Wagga Wagga Diocese, NSW, 2000). Clearly these documents have been based on synthesising studies about teacher efficacy and professionalism. They were prepared to guide the pedagogical practices of teachers in the implementation of quality teaching and learning in schools and to assist teachers in their role of shaping the future of the children they teach. Whilst they were designed to acknowledge the multiplicity, the complexity and the dynamic nature of the learning and teaching process and its context, such publications or even the principles, in themselves, are not sufficient to improve classroom literacy practices. In the past such documentation, curriculum change and government publications or even mandates have demonstrated change is possible at the level of the educational rhetoric but the quality of literacy teaching practices in classrooms have remained unchanged and the issue of efficacy has stayed high on the educational agenda (Kyrakiades, 1997). Why? Perhaps teachers have not been supported to focus professional improvement at the micro level of practice: the level of talk.

In a practical sense looking at the level of talk, described by Anstey (1996) as the ‘micro’ level of classroom practice, a picture of what constitutes effective teaching and learning is made available which can justifiably act as a springboard for focused educational change. Although the issue of classroom interaction has emerged to be a pivotal topic in discussions relating to explicit and effective instruction in many educational forums, they have yet to move into the professional development arena for teachers in any significant way. Consequently we are forced to ask ourselves to assess the critical components for the future path of our profession that will focus on how to support, improve and maintain teacher quality and professionalism. In my view, what is critically and fundamentally needed is for teachers themselves to focus pedagogical change at the micro level of the lesson: the level of their teacher-student interactions.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Research such as the well-documented study by Freebody, Ludwig and Gunn (1995), "Everyday Literacy Practices in and out of School in Low Socio-economic Urban Communities" has paved the way for understanding the implications of teacher-student interactions in Australian classrooms. This research has not only captured the essence of the ever-increasing diversity among teachers and students, but importantly it provides a background to classroom interactive practices typically found in Australian classrooms across a range of settings. Current educational media have taken up the reported findings in a range of contexts to inform the future directions of learning and teaching in this country. My own study has taken these findings into the professional development arena by working collaboratively with teachers in a way that focused their thinking on the relationship between their own classroom interactive practices and effective pedagogy (Edwards-Groves,1998).

Transcripts of Interaction Assist Teacher change

For the group of teachers in my research, the patterns of interactions they observed in their own classrooms (through examining transcript data and focused reflection) in fact acted as a motivation for professional improvement and change. Critically, looking at their classroom interaction patterns showed them the details of the topic and management structures of their literacy lessons. Specifically it captured what they set up to be of primary importance in literacy lessons by displaying what topics were the main point of the lesson, how the ‘lessons’ progressed, what their students ‘heard’ to be the focal point of the lesson and how ‘lessons’ are concluded, what was made explicit, and what was left implicit. In particular it was shown that systematic and explicit pedagogy, major components of effective teaching, were absent or inconsistent with their beliefs about their practice and about effective practice; a revelation that acted as a springboard for interactional change for this group.

Typical of the comments made by the teachers after reviewing their own lessons is this view from a Year 4 teacher:

Recognised here is the point that focused review of your own teaching practice (via transcript technology) enables teachers to make clear statements about the effectiveness of their own work. These teachers redefined their view of what a literacy lesson should look like and strongly suggest the importance of this information for all teachers. Explicitly prioritising student learning by changing their interactive practices resulted. Further, the "Quality Teaching Project 1.8: Literacy Learning and Teaching in the Classroom" in my local region has recently taken up aspects of this information to go beyond curriculum, resources and strategies to provide professional development focused on the importance of classroom interaction. This program used the information developed by my research group develop understandings at the fundamental level of practice (the level of talk) by directly relating to the effectiveness of their interactive practices and its relationship to quality teaching and learning. Collaborative professional development programs incorporating in-class support and focused reflection and lesson evaluation orients individual teachers toward specifically improving their interactive practices in relation to their understandings. This approach forms a principled program of improvement that assists teachers make well-informed choices about learning and how to be better teachers rather than ‘a hope for the best’ approach reflected by a one-size-fits-all professional development program.

This presentation blends what theorists say, what teachers say and what classroom practice looks like. It takes the main points of my study to draw attention to effective teaching and learning practices by examining teacher-student interactions within the context of classroom literacy lessons. The lessons these teachers learned have implications for the learning and teaching practices for all teachers. Pushing the boundaries to encompass the significance of classroom interactions aims to shift our current understandings of what constitutes effective literacy pedagogy in today’s classrooms. The interrelated themes of classroom literacy lessons, effective pedagogy and teacher-student interactions are utilised to address these main questions:

• What constitutes a literacy lesson? What is the role of classroom talk?

• What lessons do our students learn in our classrooms?

• What lessons can we learn about literacy teaching practices?

• What are the implications for professional development?

TALK WITHIN THE CLASSROOM CREATES THE SOCIAL AND LEARNING CONTEXT

Let’s turn to the classroom as a starting point. Classrooms provide the interactive and physical context for student learning. All classrooms share one thing in common - they are unique social sites in that the distinctive nature of the classroom situation demands that teaching and learning happen whilst simultaneously constructing roles and relationships between teachers and students. Teachers and students create, through talk, the social classroom context on which they rely to support instructional talk. They use their knowledge of that context to generate appropriate behaviour, and the appropriateness of that behaviour, in turn, serves to define the context in which they interact (Edwards and Furlong, 1979). Students learn the way of the school by participating in it.

Studies of both how classrooms work and of literacy practices within the classroom context give attention to the organisation of classroom discourse whilst providing descriptions of effective practices. These studies offer a powerful way of showing the development of classrooms as a unique social culture and the situated construction of literacy practices through the life of the classroom (Edwards and Furlong, 1979; Willes, 1983; Heap, 1985, 1992; Baker & Freebody, 1989; Gee, 1990; Baker, 1991; Anstey1993, 1996; Freebody, Ludwig and Gunn, 1995).

Lessons as an interactive event: What is accomplished by classroom talk? What lessons do our students learn?

Classroom talk is distinctive and easily recognisable. Transcripts of classroom interaction, such as the one below, clearly demonstrate that classrooms provide the both interactive and physical context for school learning. This context affords a highly complex set of interpersonal interactions that serve to simultaneously assemble the social relationships between teacher and student as it organises student learning, a relationship well documented (Baker & Freebody, 1989; Baker, 1991; Edwards-Groves, 1998, Freebody, Ludwig and Gunn, 1995; Luke 1995). Talk shapes the context (the culture of the classroom), organises students for learning and the learning itself.

Transcripts, such as this, demonstrate how talk is at the core of the interpersonal, social and intellectual relationships between teachers and students within the context of the classroom. What is talked about or learned (what we did on the weekend) is inextricably linked with cultural social organisations of the classroom (hands up and nominating turns at talk). We learn that classroom talk is a main tool for teaching, for thinking and for learning. It is an entry into written language and the main way in which students encounter and learn about the ways or the culture of the school (Baker & Freebody, 1989). Regardless of what texts or curriculum documents are used for example, it is through the talk and patterns of interaction that the learning is enacted and made visible.

The effectiveness of the classroom teaching and learning practices hinges on the effectiveness of the interaction practices. In order to identify what is learnt by our students it is necessary to establish what teachers talk about and how students hear what the lesson is about; that is, how they mutually engage the literacy through their interactions. To illustrate this it is necessary to look at classroom lessons via transcript technology, which helps teachers to interpret their everyday teaching and learning routines, instructional focus, establish what is effective and ultimately, what is achieved by classroom talk. They show what happens in classrooms, and how literacy events unfold. Reading the transcripts enabled the teachers to ‘work over’ the lesson (transcript or taped lesson) for what it revealed on a moment-by-moment, turn-by-turn basis. They allow us to reflect in a focused way about whether similar or different approaches might be useful for student learning in future lessons. Significantly, what the group of teachers in my study learned reflected main findings from other research (eg, Freebody, Ludwig and Gunn, 1995) but they collaboratively supported in taking this new knowledge back to their practice. Their learning shaped the future directions for learning and teaching in their classrooms.

What teachers can learn about literacy lessons?

If we look through the door of any classroom, what do we notice to be going on? What lessons are taking place? What do we understand a lesson to be? Although on the surface these appear to be quite banal questions, we must look deeply at our understandings and what has shaped them. When we think about what we understand a lesson to be our immediate thoughts turn first to the teaching and learning of aspects of literacy. We might even simply say lessons are about teaching and learning. However, we need to look deeper at the fundamental level of practice. Lessons first and foremost are an evolving interactive process.

Lesson Beginnings

As a starting point we examine how some lessons begin will be. The beginning of the lesson is the foundation stone from where the learning is built. It importantly is the point where the learning is put centre stage and has the power of influencing the successful progression of the learning event for our students. Starting lessons effectively must be a priority for all teachers. It sets the scene, so that all students are focusing on the purposes and processes for learning and establishes the context in which this learning will take place. Looking at task introductions of the following literacy lessons shows the topics teachers set up as the main point for students to focus thinking and activity.

In reviewing their practice the teachers learned that what counts as the main topic in a lesson for students may be any number of things, and it is the responsibility of the teaching to make specific learning intentions clear at the beginning of the lesson for all students to hear. And the instructional focus needs to be maintained throughout the learning event. Students do not have access to the lesson purpose unless it is clearly, and publicly, set out for them from the onset of the learning and maintained throughout the lesson. These aspects of teaching draw attention to the importance of classroom interaction as being the pivotal resource for effective teaching. How teachers set up the learning context through their talk can be a primary indicator of lesson effectiveness.

In comparison, the next example shows the focal topic of talk was the classroom theme ‘insects’. The teacher explicitly foregrounded this lesson to be about ‘praying mantis’. The introductory statement ‘How could we give those praying mantis’s a drink? (see turn 1) lead students to think about praying mantis’s as the primary topic of the lesson. There was no orientation to specific literacy learning, or even to the teacher’s intended purpose in this instance.

Effective teachers prepare the learning path by explicating instructional goals and the lesson rationale by paying careful attention to what we talk about in lesson. It is an essential characteristic of effective teaching and learning practice. What we can learn from this excerpt is the importance of clearly orienting students to specific learning outcomes. Whilst at times thematic talk is appropriate for some lesson purposes, we need to be mindful that if themes and texts are ‘announced’ as the topic for talk then the intended learning purposes are blurred. Themes and text need to treated as the vehicles through which learning literacy outcomes are achieved. Children are less able to understand the object of the lesson, and thus able to achieve it, when unable to discern whether the teacher’s talk relates to:

• the learning purposes of the lesson

• classroom management or organisation, or

• general ‘everyday culturally familiar’ experiences or thematic topics

Essential Focused links within Lessons

Turning to the way lessons are maintained, concluded and reviewed, teachers learnt how explicit links between lesson introductions, lesson purposes, instructional sequences and lesson conclusions are necessary. Maintaining the literacy focus works toward maximising students encounters with the objective of the lesson and ensures the lesson counted as valuable literacy learning. Many lessons in my sample however, showed the talk to be regularly shifting from literacy to ‘everyday’ familiar themes in an ‘incidental’ or even ad hoc fashion. Rather than maintaining the literacy focus routine digressions into other topics emerged as a regular teaching practice.

By observing lesson conclusions we can learn how this feature of an effective literacy lesson enables connections to be made to lesson purposes. Typically, however, these were absent in the lessons from my sample, these simply concluded with ‘wrap—up’ statements. For this group of teachers lessons initially stopped abruptly without orientation to the literacy learning objectives of the lesson or review of the primary lesson points. The lesson conclusions were simply a signal to ‘pack up’, rather than treated as an opportunity to harness and review specific learning.

What we learn by these examples is that talk, with the specific purpose to review or summarise specific aspects of learning, is a feature of effective teaching. It emerged to be considered by these teachers as a significant way to connect the learning purposes to learning outcomes for students. These teachers recognised this and made statements such as:

Time for review of literacy learning at the end of lessons needs to be considered as an integral part of the lesson. Consider this excerpt where literacy outcomes were explicitly connected to what was happening in the lesson and at the end of the lesson. The teacher acknowledged the importance of the ‘lesson review’ (see the comments below).

A lesson is not the activity or task, nor is it the texts or resources we use, it is not the teaching program, the syllabus or its prescripted outcomes, nor is it the groups we arrange or the even the product of activity. These elements impact on what we talk about in a ‘lesson’, but primarily they are vehicles that are utilised in the process of interaction. Clearly, the partnership between teaching and learning and teacher and learner is forged by the talk of the classroom. Transcript 5 shows how the focus (or topic) of classroom talk often has a tenuous relationship to student learning of specified outcomes.

In viewing lessons like this from a socio-cultural perspective we need to continually ask ourselves ‘what messages are we leaving our students with?’ What the students learn here is that talk about ‘themes’ or everyday familiar topics (a term used by Freebody & Frieberg, 1995) is the primary focus, they learn that learning how to spell means successfully participating in such topical talk. . The everyday conversational topic ‘farm animals’ appear to drive the lesson, and often, references to literacy learning is incidental or implicit. After this lesson the teacher described this discussion as ‘terrific because all the kids were involved’. However after reading the transcript, the teacher shifted his view on what went on, to say:

Year 4 Classroom Teacher

What messages are leaving with students?

The social organisations and interactions encountered in ‘lessons’ in reading and writing enables children to become acculturated into being ‘literate’ in the everyday world. In the same sense, students learn that particular social and organisational routines are associated with becoming literate. Complying with school routines (eg, hands up, one speaker at a time, turn taking) are often prioritised as they are learning about aspects of literacy (eg, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, text types, spelling and vocabulary, word processing, writing, skimming, scanning, summarising, topic sentences etc). The transcript example below shows how participation in the ‘lesson’ requires student compliance with the interactive routines or patterns of the classroom.

Transcript 4 clearly shows that the culture of the classroom evolves through the talk. It demonstrates that literacy learning is embedded within particular school routines and patterns of interactive participation. It shows how students are typically drawn into being interactive participants in their lessons; they comply with the interactive ‘norms’ constructed by teachers. What is ‘heard’ by the students is that this lesson is about complying with important Year 1 rules. And if they don’t, it is made clear that ‘no calling out, hands up and waiting for your turn’ are associated with learning to read. The lesson here is that the children will learn how to participate appropriately in order to achieve literacy success — one clearly hinges on the other. Students participate in constructing classroom interactions and consequently participate in teaching and in their own learning.

When classroom learning is only loosely related to a focused set of literacy objectives, students experience a blurring of objectives that make it difficult for them to know what is required of them cognitively. Examination of classroom literacy practice has shown that in many classrooms, explicit teaching almost routinely directed to developing classroom participation skills and behaviour rather than to developing specific literacy knowledge and skills. As a result the learning task becomes a secondary concern as management and organisation are given priority.

Successful participation in literacy learning is often shown by teachers to rely on the successful participation in classroom organisational routines. Students learn that literacy learning is therefore linked to behaving in a particular way in classrooms, and so it is within school type talk literacy learning is achieved. Furthermore, in the same sense, successful participation in school routines is often taken by teachers to be successful teaching and learning. For example, if children are behaving appropriately and successfully engaging in the participation routines like ‘hands up and no calling out’ then learning has taken place and the lesson is deemed ‘successful’. We often consider the child who is complying with these classroom norms to be the ‘best learners’. Importantly, from a socio-cultural perspective, this only demonstrates the students are successfully engaging in a particular interactive routine, not in learning about literacy.

Many shifts to attend to logistical management issues in the classroom suspend the focus of the pedagogy from literacy learning to behaviour management. "Lessons for all" is an interactive management strategy that routinely serves to teach all students about the right way to behave (consider the example below as a lesson about ‘litter’ is given). Everyday management of classrooms is necessary and it is not practical to suggest that teachers should not attend to behaviour. But teachers are asked to think about management as potential interruption to the learning and successful achievement of literacy outcomes. The possibility of individualisation of behaviour management should be considered so that orientations to management do not override the learning focus. A strong sense of moral order should not dominate the talk of the classroom to such an extent that the learning focus is masked.

The teacher made these observations about this type of lesson excerpt:

The social organisation of classrooms through talk relates to how much of the learning space is taken up with attending to behaviour and management issues. The teacher comments challenge us to address attention to behaviour as an issue that specifically relates to effective student learning. It is an issue that has the potential to interrupt the flow of the lesson and consequently the learning. We need to consider these questions:

• Is the whole class called away from the learning task to attend to every misdemeanour?
•  Does the lesson focus shift from literacy learning to becoming a lesson on the ‘right way to behave’, whereby a strong sense of moral order is a main concern?
• How regularly does management talk cut across the instruction?
• Are orientations to student behaviour formalised and systematic, or informal and incidental?
• Is a particular ‘pep-talk’ system of behaviour recruited to manage student behaviour?
• Is the whole class called to attention when behavioural issues are addressed in class?
• Does one indiscretion call for ‘a-lesson-for-all’ in how to behave correctly?

The literacy learning must remain the focal topic of talk in any lesson and what is to be learnt needs to remain a primary concern. Care must be taken not to blur the learning objective by calling for whole class attention to address issues related to behaviour. Significantly, meaningful learning comes from meaningful talk. If we focus our talk on specific aspects of literacy, we focus our instruction. Therefore we need to be mindful of what we focus our interaction on — the learning outcomes? the texts? the resources? the theme? the groups? the activity? the product? the behaviour of students?

WHAT LESSONS ABOUT LITERACY TEACHING PRACTICES CAN TEACHERS LEARN FROM ANALYSING TALK? IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Talk in classrooms has different purposes. However, ‘lesson talk’ must be largely instructional rather than conversational. By reviewing their own lesson transcripts the teachers in my research reconceptualized their understandings of ‘what constitutes a lesson’ and their comments provide compelling accounts of the importance of classroom interaction, explicit teaching and their impact on student learning. This comment illustrates this shift in understanding:

Specifically orienting to classroom talk has significant implications for professional development, a point highlighted by the teachers in my own study. Although it is important for teachers to acknowledge and understand the role of theory in professional development, it is more critical for the change enterprise to begin at the fundamental level of the classroom — the level of talk. There is a need to extend teacher knowledge about the role of classroom interactions so that they can refocus delivery to be about specific literacy learning.

The power of focused reflection and review

Purposeful reflection and review of the interactions in our classrooms partly moves us toward addressing the effective approaches to professional development. This will advance and inform our thinking to improve our pedagogical practice. For example the clarity and availability of the purpose for literacy instruction effects the successful progression of literacy lessons. Hence we clearly need to provide systematic patterns of explication, as confusion about the specific nature of the task is exemplified when this is not evident. The power of focused reflection is clearly oriented to here, when this teacher exemplifies the importance of explicating the lesson focus in relation to her own learning:

The efficacy of our literacy instruction is located within the parameters of the talk encounters in our classrooms. In essence classroom interaction is linked to effective classroom literacy practices and we therefore are compelled to question the interactive practices in our classroom. Focused reflection of this context — the classroom literacy lesson - enables a redefinition what teachers know and understand about effective pedagogy that is directly related to their classroom literacy practices. Teachers need to have the opportunity to take a step back and review practices in a focused way. They need to know what to think about and to focus on in order to improve; it is difficult doing this ‘on the run’ as a player (as an interactive participant in the classroom). The importance of teacher self-reflection cannot be underestimated. Teachers need to recognise that reflecting on their own practice in a systematic way can lead to a more explicitly focused learning environment, as pointed out by this teacher:

The following questions provide a guide, but no detail, as to how teachers can review the effectiveness of their own work. They are useful in applying them to current teaching practice. (Examination and observation of actual and recorded lessons and lesson transcripts provide the necessary detail.) Therefore using focused reflection (see questions below) as an approach guides teachers to orient to specific aspects of their work. It keys them in to thinking about meaningful learning through meaningful interaction.

The importance of interactive practices (and what lessons can be learned from observing them) need to be stated both within and outside the boundaries of traditional points of focus for programs of professional development, such as curriculum, resources and ‘strategies’. In seeking to improve the efficacy of current teaching and learning practices it is necessary for teachers to locate literacy pedagogy within its social context. Without supporting teachers with a clear picture of what effective pedagogy looks like or sounds like in the "everyday" classroom lesson, teachers will be left to ask "what does this mean to me in my classroom, for my teaching, for my group of children?"

CONCLUSION

Just as definitions of literacy are evolving — so too is the nature of teaching it and the understandings and knowledge of effective pedagogy. In seeking answers to questions about the efficacy of current teaching and learning practices, theorists and educationalists are turning to viewing classroom practice through the lens of ethnography because, critically as shown in my study, it provides a detailed picture of the nature of teaching within its context. In particular, over the past decade such ethnomethodological accounts of teaching have evolved that have informed and re-shaped traditional understandings of what constitutes effective practice by going beyond simple the surface level descriptions of it. We need to use these accounts of "what is effective classroom practice that focus on classroom talk" to shape the directions of future effective pedagogy. Focused educational change that aims to improve the quality of classroom interactions, supports both teachers in their teaching context and students in their learning.

Just as teachers want guarantees about the quality of further learning opportunities made available to them, so too should the teaching community provide these guarantees for students — we need to guarantee how well our students are being prepared for their future by reconnecting teaching with learning. We want our lessons to be ones worth learning, and we can guarantee this by explicitly harnessing all opportunities for effective literacy learning.

What is suggested in this paper is that taking teachers back to the micro-level of practice is an approach that plays a fundamental role in answering questions about effective classroom literacy practices; one that must be made available to educators at all levels of service and a critical starting point for their professional journey of renewal and growth. Unless we look deeply beyond the surface of classroom teaching and view the interactive practices that unfold in the context of any lesson, our understandings about effective pedagogy and teacher change will simply remain at the surface level. It is suggested here that a new direction for understanding the effectiveness of our classroom literacy practices in relation to classroom interaction be launched as a priority for ongoing professional development. This approach accounts for meaningful learning through meaningful interactions. This will lead to meaningful futures for our young people on their journey.

REFERENCES

Anstey, M.  (1993) "Quantitative and Interpretative Analyses of Classroom Talk as a Cognitive Context for Learning about Literacy", Unpublished doctoral thesis, Griffith University

Anstey, M. & Bull, G.  (1996) The Literacy Labyrinth Sydney: Prentice Hall, Australia Pty Ltd

Baker, C.  (1991)  "Literacy Pracitices and Social; Relations In Classroom Reading Events", In C. Baker & A Luke (eds.) Towards A Critical Sociology Of Reading Pedagogy; Amsterdam: John Benjamins  B. V

Baker, C. & Freebody, P.  (1989)  Children's First School Books, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd

Baker, C. & Green, J. (1996)  "Guest editors introduction", Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol 19, No 2, 101-104

Dep of Education, QLD (1994) Principles of Effective Learning and Teaching, Queensland

Edwards, A.D. & Furlong, V.J.  (1979)  The Language Of Teaching.  London:  Heineimann.

Edwards-Groves, CJ (1998) The Reconceptualisation of Classroom Events as Structured Lessons: Documenting Changing the Teaching of Literacy in the Primary School" Unpublished doctoral thesis, Griffith University

Edwards-Groves, CJ (1999) "Explicit Teaching: Focusing Teacher Talk on Literacy" PEN 118, PETA, NSW

Freiberg, J & Freebody, P (1995)  "Analysing Literacy Events in Classrooms and Homes:  Conversation-analytic Approaches", In Freebody, P., Ludwig, C, and Gunn, S.  (1995), The Literacy Practices in and out of Schools in Low Socio-Economic Urban Communities, Commonwealth DEET; p185-369

Freebody, P., Ludwig, C, & Gunn, S.  (1995)  The Literacy Practices in and out of Schools in Low Socio-Economic Urban Communities, Commonwealth Department of Employment, Education and Training, Curriculum Corporation, Commonwealth of Australia, June

Gee, J.  (1990)  Social Linguistics and Literacies London:  Falmer Press

Heap, J.L (1985)  "Discourse in the Production of Classroom Knowledge:  Reading Lessons", Curriculum Inquiry, Vol 15.  pp. 245-79

Heap, J.  (1992)  "Understanding classroom events:  A critique of Durkin, with an alternative", Journal of Reading Behaviour, Vol 14, No 4, 390-411

Kyriakides, L.  (1997)  "Influences of Primary Teacher’s Practice:  Some problems for curriculum change theory", British Educational Research Journal, Vol 33, No 1

Ramsey, G.  (2000) "Quality Matters-Revitalising Teachers: Critical times, critical choices — Executive Summary" Dep of Ed & Training, NSW

Wagga Wagga Diocese Catholic Schools Office & Hands On Consultancy, (2000) Today’s Children: Tomorrow’s Adults, Wagga Wagga, NSW

Willes, M. J.  (1983)  Children into Pupils, London:  Routledge and Kegan Paul

Download a Word copy of this keynote address (116k)