About: Quality Talk

Adapting Quality Talk for use Adapting Quality Talk for use in South African schools. To add to and disseminate knowledge on how resilience can be promoted by building teacher capacity in literacy teaching. Funders are UP (RDP) and PennState. The importance of evidence-based intervention into raising comprehension and critical thinking skills levels among learners cannot be over stated partly because of the impact these skills have on other area of the curriculum and by necessary implication; the progression/repetition rate, drop-out rates as well as work opportunities post compulsory schooling. Quality Talk (QT) developed in school-based intervention research by Karen Murphy (Murphy et al. 2009). Quality Talk has proven effective for use by teachers in the United States to engage students critically and with comprehension in classrooms. Quality Talk is an evidence-based approach to reading and instruction. It involves discussions that promote students’ high-level comprehension of text, where high-level comprehension refers to critical-reflective thinking and epistemic cognition about and around text. The approach is premised on the belief that talk is a tool for thinking, and that certain kinds of talk can contribute to high-level comprehension.

The purpose of the project is to adapt Quality Talk (as evidenced-based intervention) for use by English Language teachers in a rural high school in South Africa. QT as a model of classroom discussion has been empirically validated as a method for developing critical thinking in learners across the grades (Murphy et al., 2009; Wilkinson et al., 2010). In addition, the implementation of the QT was designed to complement teachers’ instructional approach and to align with curricula requirements. The model comprises of four elements: “instructional frame for discussion; discourse tools and signs to promote productive talk about text; conversational moves for teacher modelling and scaffolding; and a set of pedagogical principles” (Wilkinson et al., 2010, p. 5).

Study area: Quality Talk

• Dr Funke Omidire was a visiting scholar in the Department of Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education of the Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, April 2018.
• Planning meeting for 2018 was held at Chief Jerry School, Mpumalanga on Monday 19 March 2018.
• Teacher professional development: 10-11 March 2017
• Learner fluency assessment; Classroom observations: 4-5 May 2017 
• Teacher interviews and further planning: 9 May 2017
• Ebersöhn & Murphy: planning meeting in Fredericksburg, Texas in April 2017
• Workshop for learner leaders; Quality Talk intervention, classroom observations: August 2017 
• Sept 2017 site visits with dr Karen P. Murphy (PennState University) and the UP team;  Workshop for learner leaders; Quality Talk intervention, classroom observations and interviews
• Apr 2016: L Ebersöhn – hosted by PennState
• Planning with school management, 10 February 2016, Chief Jerry Secondary School.
• October 2015: exchange to PennState University – Dr Funke Omidire & Marisa Leask

Role players: Quality Talk

•     Dr Funke Omidire, University of Pretoria

•     Prof Liesel Ebersöhn, University of Pretoria

•     Prof Karen Murphy, The Pennsylvania State University

•     Ms Carla Firetto, The Pennsylvania State University

•     Ms Marisa Leask, University of Pretoria (PhD Student)

•     Ms Sheila Sefhedi, University of Pretoria (PhD Student)

•     School Role Players include

Click here for research associates

Click here for departmental home page