TEACHERTALK-GeoffBarton.docVIP

TEACHER TALK By Geoff Barton Many of us enter teaching determined to avoid ‘the dark sarcasm of the classroom’. This is probably as futile as hoping we won’t one day turn into our parents. Teacher talk is something deep-rooted and difficult to avoid. For example, it is heavily repetitive. Probably more than any other professional body, teachers repeat themselves. We spell things out: “Today we’ll be studying proteins. We’ll start by looking at what proteins are. Then we’ll look at what they do. Then we’ll do an experiment to test some proteins ourselves. Let’s start by seeing who can tell me anything about proteins. Shelley, what do you know about proteins …?” This is classic teacher talk – clear, repetitive, highly explicit and reassuring to most listeners. It is also, like most teacher talk, full of questions. Teachers use questions like chefs use olive oil. They are a core ingredient of our language. Sometimes questions are genuinely exploratory (“Which other capital city has subway systems like this?”), occasionally open-ended (“What do you think?”), and – most controversially – a form of social control: “Peter, why aren’t you listening?” Teacher talk is also full of imperative verb forms – commands and orders that we’d rarely think to use in everyday life. “Right, sit down. Get your books out. Leanne, pay attention”. So these are some of the teacher talk traits we might be aiming to avoid. That can, however, lead you to a different dark side – the risky territory of seeming to aspire to trendiness. This is the hazard of changing the way you talk in order to show that you’re ‘on the kids’ wavelength’. It is disarmingly easy to slip into language patterns that students regard as their own. This is the old Grange Hill cliché of the hesitant new teacher who perches on the edge of the desk for his first lesson and says “Hi, Call me Dave”. Most students loathe this. Matt, now at university, says: “ it’s bound to be embarrassing when a teacher tries to be trendy.