Within the education systems in Bri

Within the education systems in Britain and the USA, spoken language
has in any case been largely undervalued until recently. Education has usually been based predominantly on written language: indeed education
has often been equated with literacy. These assertions are inevitably broad
and rather crude, but the general point should be clear enough. It is
relatively recently that educationalists such as Barnes and Todd (1977) have
argued for the value of informal small group talk amongst pupils with no
teacher present. Such work usefully draws into question the taken-forgranted
equation between education and formal written language. However,
it may lack both a systematic formal description of the spontaneous
spoken discourse in such teaching situations, and also lack a.very convincing
educational rationale. It is plausible that small group discussions help
children to formulate their ideas, for example, but this is a commonsense
observation, rather than a firmly demonstrated point about the relation of
language and thought.