Talk moves: A repertoire of practices for productive classroom dialogue

Talk moves prompt particular responses from students; they also signal the function of the turn of talk (eg, to evaluate a response such as: 'Good answer'; to nominate the next speaker, 'Jacob, your turn'; to evoke an extended response, 'Can you explain that further'? or 'Does anyone have something else to add'?). Talk which moves classroom conversations towards offering students more time to talk with a higher degree of intellectual focus form what Edwards-Groves, Anstey and Bull (2014) describe as 'dialogic pedagogies'. It is timely, to identify those particular talk moves which enable teachers to enact dialogic pedagogies that focus on interacting with others within a discourse-intensive classroom (as it is described by Anderson, et al., 2011). This PETAA paper will assist teachers (through practical examples) to recognise the particular talk moves which form a repertoire of classroom talk practices specifically aimed at supporting the development of language 'for effective interaction and expression' (ACARA, 2013).