Communication and Learning Revisited: Making Meaning Through Talk

First published in 1995, Communication and Learning Revisited focuses on the importance and benefits of group dialogue in cooperative learning.

The book explores the use of group dialogue among students across a variety of disciplines and demonstrates how collaboration helps them to understand different concepts. It outlines cognitive and social strategies that can enhance collaboration and presents collaborative talk’s role in learning, setting forth a theoretical framework that draws upon the ideas of writers such as Vygotsky and Bakhtin.

Communication and Learning Revisited will appeal to those with an interest in teaching methods, classroom dialogue, and cooperative learning.

Douglas Barnes was Reader in Education at the University of Leeds until his retirement in 1989, having moved to Leeds after seventeen years teaching English in high schools. His research into the role of spoken and written language in learning across the curriculum led to the publication of books such as Language, the Learner and the School, (as co-author), From Communication to Curriculum, Practical Curriculum Study, and the present volume.

Frankie Todd retired as Director of Continuing Professional Education and Head of that Department at the University of Leeds. Her published work includes research on planning professional development, a study of collaborative learning in higher education, and research on the role of dialogue in police professional learning in two Canadian cities.