The most common type of teacher to student discourse is IRE. The teacher Initiates a question, the student Responds, and the teacher Evaluates the response. This type of discourse is the most widely used discourse technique but valuable only in a limited number of situations such as T: "Can someone tell me when the test is" S: "Tuesday" T: "Correct". However, in most cases IRE is not very effective at getting students to think or for that matter motivating them to try. There is too much risk and it gives failure a bad rap. In addition, it positions the teacher as the only one in the room that can be correct. Talk Moves are a better choice.