Valerie Coultas’s book on talk is primarily addressed to secondary English teachers, especially those who enjoy the challenge and lively contexts of inner city classrooms, providing the teaching equivalent of white water rafting.

She has a lot of experience of working with pupils whose reading and writing skills are weak, but who bring to the classroom enormous energy and a wealth of experience combined with the ability to creatively express themselves orally in many different languages and vernaculars. She provides lots of practical and well-tried ways in turning that talk towards a learning purpose rather than stifling it through demands for silent reading and writing ...

This is an ideal book for the inexperienced teacher who wants to make a difference ... I would like all English departments to buy this book, try out the strategies in the classroom, and then persuade colleagues in other subjects to try them out to ... I also recommend that all teacher trainers buy this book to help them to revisit all the excellent research on talk that took place between 1965 and the 1990s.' - English Drama Media, The Professional Journal of the National Association for the Teaching of English