IRE

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.

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