Exploring dialogic assessment in English: an analysis of two lessons

ABSTRACT

The article analyses in detail two lessons that were part of a larger research project on English teaching in Canada, England and Scotland. It considers whether the two English lessons are by their nature both dialogic and formative in practice. The research undertaken was carried out using arts-based criticism. It found that Eaglestone’s notion of good English teaching was synonymous with Alexander’s idea of dialogic assessment in the nature of the decisions teachers took to encourage students to think about texts. The dialogue that took place, through feedback that was cumulative, could potentially take any direction. In English, ‘the point is to respond to the “simultaneous presence of many meanings” rather than draw out one unambiguously’. The key decision for the teacher is to listen, assess and respond.

KEYWORDS:

• Dialogic teaching
• formative assessment
• English teaching
• assessment for learning

Introduction

This article focuses on two English lessons that were part of a wider research project examining English teaching in Ontario, Canada, England and Scotland (Marshall et al. 2018). The research was orientated to the decisions that the teachers made as English subject teachers. The contexts in which they taught were very different. The teachers in Canada had no terminal exams, everything was assessed through course work, and there were no government inspections. In England, the spectre of Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspections hung over the teachers and they prepared students for terminal exams at 16, with no coursework, for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE). Scotland had elements of both. Despite the contexts in which they taught, however, what distinguished the two lessons that we shall be looking at was their dialogic nature.

There are many views of English teaching (Marshall 2000) but one dominant theory is that English is about dialogue. Robert Eaglestone in Literature: Why it matters writes ‘Underneath all the different ideas about how we should study literature is the idea of dialogue’ (2019, 51) adding, ‘English and literary studies should – and at their best do – offer a sense of dialogue.’ The link then with dialogic teaching is immediate and he goes on to say why the study of English is different from other subjects in this way. ‘Literary studies is to help develop a continuing dissensus [sic] about the texts we study’ (Eaglestone 2019, 29–30).

So, for example, in writing about close reading, an activity commonly carried out in English classrooms, he says, ‘In close reading the point is to respond to the “simultaneous presence of many meanings” (Wood 2017, 47) rather than draw out one unambiguously’ (Eaglestone 2019, 45). The aim is ‘opening up’ literature (Eaglestone.:45). ‘Close reading’ then becomes ‘open ended, hard to pin down and shared creative activity’ (Eaglestone 2019, 45–6). It becomes an endless dialogue. Significantly, he adds, ‘Education really is about discussion and dialogue rather than downloading, depositing or assessment-objective tick-boxing it can become’ (Eaglestone 2019, 52).

At the turn of the century two educational practices came to the fore – formative assessment, or assessment for learning (AfL), and dialogic teaching. Both had been around for a while. The notion of dialogic teaching in English, in some senses, has always been prominent (see, for example, Barnes, Britten, and Rosen 1969; Vygotsky 1978). Work on AfL, too, had become significant (see for example Drummond 2003; Torrrance and Pryor 1998) but it really began to attract attention around the 2000s with the work of Black and Wiliam. AfL has, subsequently, been associated, by some, with a tick box approach to success criteria rather as Eaglestone describes and yet this was not the approach that Black and Wiliam, AfL’s leading advocates, took (Black and Wiliam 1998a). They looked at the term formative assessment precisely to combat the kind of summative assessment, which looked at what the teacher had taught, ‘downloading’, rather than what the student had learned (Marshall and Drummond 2006).

They extended the term formative assessment to assessment for learning precisely to emphasise the students’ role in the process and that involved a dialogue between teacher and student and student and student. For Black and Wiliam, ‘What is essential is that any dialogue should evoke thoughtful reflection in which all students can be encouraged to take part’ adding, ‘for only then can the formative process start to work’ (Black and Wiliam: 1998a, 8). The focus for the teacher is on assessing the student’s response: ‘All such work involves some degree of feedback between those taught and the teacher, and this is entailed in the quality of the interaction which is at the heart of pedagogy’ (1998a, 16). For Black and Wiliam, rather than looking at the nature of the discussion per se, the dialogue as a whole, each response, each feedback is an opportunity for the teacher to assess the student and build on what has come before.

Robin Alexander, a leading proponent of dialogic teaching, along with others such as Paul Mercer and David Skidmore (see for example, Alexander 2001, 2006a and b; Mercer and Littleton 2007; Skidmore 2006), combined the idea of dialogic teaching with formative assessment in the term dialogic assessment (2004). In so doing, Alexander recognised their close alignment. When looking at the back-and-forth nature of classroom dialogue, he notes that in cumulative dialogue everyone builds on the previous contribution, hence the term dialogic assessment. It should be acknowledged, however, that he, like Eaglestone, is more interested in the dialogic and Black and Wiliam in the assessment. If, therefore, we look at dialogue through Alexander’s lens – to answer cumulatively you must assess what the person has said to respond. If, however, we consider it from Black and Wiliam’s perspective – ‘Classroom dialogue (whole-class, group or paired discussion) is at the heart of good assessment for learning, as it enables children to develop their thinking and to learn from each other‘(dfcs, 2005). So, while Alexander, for example, continues his work on dialogic teaching (2020) Wiliam writes on assessment (2018, 2019), each working on the terminology that best describes what they mean, taking apart and reconstructing practices and theories that examine and potentially aid the classroom teacher.

For the purposes of this article, then, we will not only consider dialogue within the English classroom (Eaglestone 2020) but also the manner in which this coincided with the spirit of AfL (Marshall and Drummond 2006) and dialogic teaching (Alexander 2020). For both were apparent in the practices and flow of lessons we saw.

Methodology

In the larger research project, we used arts-based practical criticism using Dewey’s concept of criticism and Eisner’s notions of connoisseurship and critical appraisal (Marshall et al. 2018). We looked at four lessons in four schools in Canada, England and Scotland providing case studies of each country. And so we use it here, analysing two lessons, one English the other Canadian, both of which were part of the project. The approach, chosen to align with the long-term practices of the researchers participating in the project, has been validated in two articles (Marshall and Gibbons 2015a; Marshall & Pahl 2015); it has been successfully used in analysing classroom data in an ESRC project (Marshall and Drummond 2006) and for our book (Marshall et al. 2018).

In essence, we did a close reading of semi-structured interviews, policy documents and classrooms, and all that goes on within them, as a text that can be criticised as you would criticise any text. While acknowledging that some may view criticism as being ‘subjective’ Eisner argues, ‘Each of these concepts, educational connoisseurship and educational criticism, have their roots in the arts’ (Eisner 2005, 41). Criticism, as Dewey pointed out in Art as Experience (1932/2005), has at its end the re-education of perception. What the critic strives for is to articulate or render those ineffable qualities constituting art in the language that makes them vivid (Eisner 1991, 41). And he concludes, ‘The task of the critic is to help us see’ (ibid.:41).

There is some evidence, also, (Marshall 2000) that English teachers respond better to research when they feel that research is carried out in an arts, as opposed to a traditional social science, approach. Using research methodologies that are consistent with the culture of the English classroom, treating them as you would any close reading of a text, is a crucial part of building a culture likely to encourage authentic data. It is also worth noting that, when observing these lessons, we were neither looking for AfL specifically nor dialogic teaching, as is defined by Alexander. In critically analysing two lessons now, however, one from England, the other Ontario, we will draw on both Black and Wiliam and Alexander as a means of understanding what we are seeing. In addition, given Eaglestone’s observation that the study of English literature is essentially dialogic, we consider how the lessons both tend to this description. We will now look at the lessons in detail.

The lessons

Lord of the flies

Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, in their pamphlet for teachers, Working Inside the Black Box itemise the characteristics of AfL teaching including questioning, feedback through marking, and peer and self assessment (Black and Wiliam 2002). This was later extended to include sharing the success criteria with learners (2003). When observing Paul’s English lesson none of these key characteristics were at first evident. At no point did he share the lesson criteria with the class; there was no marking, nor any peer assessment; his questioning appeared ad hoc. It is only when you substitute the word dialogue for questioning and feedback as oral, whereby a teacher responds, assesses a student’s response and replies, that the lesson takes on an AfL complexion. The analysis of the lesson is, in some ways, however, about how Paul chooses to teach English; it is about the decisions he makes that turn it into a formative experience for his class.

His fifty-minute lesson on the dystopian novel Lord of the Flies (Golding 1954/1997) about a group of choir boys stranded on an Island, has four distinct phases, each building on the last one, all of which demand a close reading of the text, including a comparison of one text with another. He began briefly by recapping what they had covered in the previous lesson. He commented that the book seemed to be considering issues to do with civilisation and anarchy, adding that they had got to a point in the novel where the relationships between the boys appeared to be changing. He then read a section of the novel, without introduction, which depicts a meeting, called by a boy named Jack, about the Beast (a creature supposed to be living at the top of a forest-covered hill). Two central characters Jack and Ralph fall out, Jack comparing Ralph to Piggy, another important figure in the novel. This lasted around eight minutes

This was followed by a discussion in pairs or threes where the only direction given by Paul was to look at the relationship between Jack and Ralph, whether it is different from the relationship at the start of the novel and to note and underline anything they thought was significant. While they did this he went around speaking to around half the class. The session was concluded by a whole-class discussion, typically called a feedback session by English teachers in England, though not necessarily in the formative sense of the word. The discussion in pairs lasted fourteen minutes while class discussion was about ten minutes

Next, he introduced a slide with the cover of Coral Island (Ballantyne 1857/1995) saying they did not have to read it but they could have a look at it and decide if they wanted to continue. He then showed another slide with an extract from the book with a conversation between two of the novel’s three characters, also called Ralph and Jack. Having read it aloud, he told them that William Golding had based his novel on this one, the latter being idyllic, and asked the class, if they were deposited on a desert Island, which version would they be like. Universally the class said Lord of the Flies. He then gave them a couple of minutes to look at how the boys in Coral Island spoke to each other and he went to the other half of the class that he had not seen in the first group discussion. He brought the class back and talked through what they had said. This lasted about eight minutes. As they spoke one student said that the boys in Coral Island needed each other more because there were only three of them so it would be worse if they fell out.

Spontaneously he then asked them to consider whether Piggy, Ralph and Jack needed each other, which lasted another four or five minutes. While they were still discussing, he put another slide up with the word symbolism on it and a conch shell. He then drew a triangle. When he asked the groups to come back to a whole-class discussion, only three thought the characters did not need each other. Paul then turned to the triangle, connecting it with another book the class had studied, Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck 1937/2006) and applied the word character to it saying that Piggy is intelligent, Jack brave and Ralph fair. Joined together, in the triangle, they would make a good leader, each complementing the other. Finally, he put up a quiz linking three leaders, a vegetarian, a drug addict and an alcoholic and asked them to pick which one they would have to be lead their country. They all picked the vegetarian and then the final slide is revealed. The alcoholic is Churchill, the drug addict Roosevelt and the vegetarian is of course Hitler. The bell went and the lesson ended.

The lesson has a clear shape, an arc through which the students read a passage from two books coming to a conclusion of sorts about the nature of leadership. And yet even though the lesson does not have a clear learning outcome or indeed an objective that is shared with the class the lesson is formative in spirit (Marshall and Drummond 2006). Each section builds on the one that has come before. So, without reading a section of the novel they would not have been able to closely analyse the text and, without that analysis of the text, the passage on Coral Island would have made little sense, as it relied on an understanding of the characters in Lord of the Flies. Without that comparison, the final section on leadership would have been weaker because the class had a deeper understanding of how the characters could have relied on each other and so together provided effective leadership.

Moreover, if we consider that feedback can be oral as well as written then Paul can be seen as very effective in several ways. To begin with he remembered what had been said in the pairs, when going round the class, and asked for their contributions in the class feedback when he deemed it appropriate. So for example when they were discussing the three characters from Coral Island, and a pupil had said that they might be talking only to impress, he called upon a girl to say what she had thought when discussing it in pairs. In this way, he was using student contributions to further thinking. For Black and Wiliam effective AfL ‘involves some degree of feedback between those taught and the teacher, and this is entailed in the quality of the interaction which is at the heart of pedagogy’ (Black and Wiliam 1998b.:16).

Significantly too, he alters the course of his lesson. The task to consider whether or not Piggy, Ralph and Jack need each other was not pre-planned but added because he realised that, given the comment one of the pupils had made, it would, potentially, deepen their understanding of the nature of leadership. The ability to rework a lesson plan based on an understanding of where the class is, is characteristic of AfL (Black et al. 2003) because the teacher is altering, and so extending what they do based on feedback from the students. As Black and Wiliam define it, ‘Such assessment becomes “formative assessment” when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching work to meet the needs’”[sic] (Black and Wiliam 1998a, 2).

In addition, whenever the class fed back he wrote their contributions on the board. In so doing, he was polishing their responses or to use the Japanese term applying neriage (Marshall 2005). What is interesting is that this is one of the few times he uses closed questions. So, for example, when asking why it is insulting that Jack compares Ralph to Piggy someone answers that Piggy is not well liked to which Paul replied, ‘What was the word we used to describe Piggy before’ and a number of pupils said ‘Pariah’ which is what he writes down.

He also adds to their knowledge. Twice when comparing Coral Island with Lord of the Flies, for example, he writes additional information on the board, and so, in a way, ‘polishes’ their responses. On one occasion, when a student describes the three boys in Coral Island as being very polite but not that different Paul asked whether or not there was someone whose ideas were followed, adding that in communication studies such a person in a group might be called and ‘opinion maker’. Another time, he talked about the ‘social dynamics’ of a group when a boy said that you talk differently to different people. Again, he wrote the term up on the board. In this way, too, Paul is, in Vygotskian terms (1978), the more able or expert other extending the students’ zone of proximal development.

Paul also acts as a more able other in the questions that he asks. The vast majority of these questions are spontaneous, based on a response to a student’s comments. So, for example, a student said that Jack and Ralph did not get on, to which he replies, ‘What does that convey?’ When talking of Jack’s assertion that Ralph sounds like Piggy he asks, ‘What does that mean?’ When the conversation flags he asks, ‘What else?’ Each one of these interactions was determined by, and developed, the students’ thinking: responsive feedback given by Paul in the form of an impromptu question.

When observing the lesson we did not say that we were looking for AfL in no way was it a prerequisite, and yet Paul clearly demonstrates the spirit of AfL in his teaching (Marshall and Drummond 2006). Writing in a book Assessment and Learning Mary James’s claims that, ‘The teacher needs to create an environment in which people can be stimulated to think and act’ (James 2009, 57). Within the AfL classroom, considering AfL in terms of Vygotskian social constructivism, she writes,

It is important to find activities that learners can complete with assistance but not alone so that ‘the more expert other’, in some cases the teacher but often a peer, can ‘scaffold’ their learning (a concept shared with cognitive approaches) and remove the scaffold when they can cope on their own (James 2009, 57).

She bases her view of AfL as socially constructed learning on the premise that

Thinking is conducted through actions that alter the situation and the situation changes the thinking; the two constantly interact … Since language, which is central to our capacity to think, is developed in relationship between people, social relationships are necessary for, and precede, learning (Vygotsky 1978). Thus learning is by definition a social and collaborative activity in which people develop their thinking together (James 2009, 57)

Above all things Paul’s lesson exemplifies thinking together and in this respect it also fulfils Alexander’s view of both dialogic assessment and teaching. The dialogue is cumulative. What is impressive about the lesson is the way Paul listens to what the pupils say before responding, as you would do in a normal conversation. At one point, he exclaims, as you might do if a thought suddenly struck you, ‘Isn’t it a terrible thing to say we will fall out rather than solve the problem’ (Paul). And yet Paul does not let the lesson ramble. There are no blind alleys into which the classroom dialogue falls. Throughout the lesson, he guided the discussion while at the same time leaving it open for discussion.

In an interview afterwards, he says

….the great thing about Lord of the Flies is that it is utterly ambiguous, it’s totally horrific and yet at the same time entirely realistic and we don’t want to believe these things are possible and yet we can all see the evidence in the world around us that suggests that human beings are capable of terrible things. I think when you approach the text with a particular view point in mind over something as … trivial is not quite the right word, but something as secondary as who is the most effective leader and why, you are probably doing the text an injustice to say well Ralph is because he is this, this, this and this, surely the point is that there is good and evil in everyone and that I suppose was the theme that I was guiding them towards at the end of the text (Paul).

This is what makes it an effective English lesson. As Eaglestone says, ‘English and literary studies should – and at their best do – offer a sense of dialogue’ and, moreover, the lesson was an exercise in close reading which was ‘open ended, hard to pin down and shared creative activity’ (2019, 45–6). To this extent, the students were ‘doing’ English (Marshall et al. 2018).

Dixon, in his book Growth through English(1967), said that after 1966 there were two kinds of English lessons, those that were skills-based and those where children experienced what it was like to ‘do’ English (Gibbons 2014). What was important to Paul was that the students in his class grappled with the text and through the text the ambiguity of what Golding presents. He wanted them to think deeply about the issues and too, the language in which Golding writes about them. Although it is an examination class he only once, fleetingly, refers to it. It is hard to know whether or not making the success criteria explicit or stating the learning objectives would have made this lesson better. It may have, indeed, detracted from the Englishy feel of it and yet throughout Paul guides the discussion, deepening the students understanding of the text in a manner that has all the hallmarks of an exemplary AfL lesson.

Life of Pi

The lesson, taught by Wanda, on the Life of Pi (Martel 2002) took place in Ontario, Canada at the end of the school day. It was again in four sections. In the book, a boy is shipwrecked with his parents, who die; the book follows a fantasy, touching many issues including the meaning of life, whereby he is trapped on a raft with a Tiger called Richard Parker. The class began the lesson reading a book of their choice although several of them read The Life of PI. This section of the lesson was long in that lasted around twenty minutes.

Wanda then divided up the class into well-established study partners (these were written on a slide) so when they were asked to divide up the whole class moved around to find their study partner. They were asked to look at five short chapters that they had already read and think of a title for each chapter. Along with the title they were asked to find a quotation (with a page reference) that matched what they felt the title they had chosen implied. The aim was to act as a summary for the next task, which was on the back of the sheet of paper she had given out. The paired conversation lasted about ten minutes and during that time she went around the class and listened to what they had to say. The feedback lasted another ten minutes. She then interrupted the flow of the lesson to introduce a piece about their forthcoming assessment, which had nothing to do with Life of Pi, but was about A Christmas Carol, before returning to the work on a Life of Pi for the remainder of the lesson.

If we look at the second section of the lesson, omitting the reading time, we see Wanda responding to the contributions in two distinct ways. To begin with she asks the students themselves to elaborate their answers, for instance, ‘How come?’ ’Why did you do that?’ or ‘Why did you call it that?’ so asking them to go back over and rethink their initial response.

Yet she also uses a kind of polishing or consolidation of the students’ answers, which are thoughtful and extensive. So, for example, one pupil entitles chapter 66, ‘The hours were long, the fish were small and Richard Parker was fervent’ and then adds, ‘I chose that because the chapter was about fishing and that kind of summed it up, how hard it all was and what he was doing it for, and why and how long he had been doing it and I thought it summed it up nicely’ (student). Wanda’s reply takes what the student has said and referring back to the events in the book reinforces and so consolidates the student’s reply, phrasing it differently, thus adding to it. ‘Yes, so it would be one thing to keep himself alive but what he’s decided to do is keep Richard Parker as well so the collection of fish is a constant every day job’ (Wanda). As in Paul's lesson, it is an example of neriage of a kind. And yet it is conversational too. She is genuinely thinking through what they have said, discussing it with them and at times adding to the student’s comment, which again is dialogic and cumulative: ‘So that really reinforces that Pi is in a state of crisis. He’s not able to relax’ (Wanda).

In this way, she too is ‘open ended, hard to pin down’ (Eaglestone 2019, 45–6). Indeed, she starts the whole section of the lesson by saying that it is, ‘Good in fact preferable if you don’t have all the same titles and quotations’ (Wanda). What makes it different from Paul’s lesson is that she uses lollipop sticks with the students’ names on to ensure that she asks people randomly. In an interview after the lesson she says, ‘I do that because I um, it’s really important to me that students are not fully disengaged in my class and that is very hard to um, avoid, especially at the end of the day’ (Wanda). Interestingly she adds, ‘So one of the strategies I make use of, first I always try to make sure they move around during the period. So they stand up and walk around’ (Wanda), a strategy she used in the lesson observed.

The use of lollipop sticks is a technique that is suggested as part of AfL as a way of ensuring that the students know that anyone could be called upon to answer a question and that it alerts the whole of the class to think about whatever is being taught at the time (Black et al. 2003). It can be linked with the technique of having ‘hands down’ (ibid) so again anyone can be called rather than simply the keenest volunteering. It is also connected to wait time so that everyone has the opportunity to think through what they want to say before a question is asked. According to Rowse (1986) the average wait time given before either a student or the teacher themselves answered a question was 0.8 seconds. This again meant that only a few students answered anything so giving all students time to think was seen as an effective AfL strategy (Black et al. 2003). In both Paul and Wanda’s classes students were given ample opportunity to discuss in pairs before they are asked anything by the teacher. Yet the idea of using lollipop sticks came from one of her lecturers who taught a class on ‘Cooperative Learning’, which has its antecedents in thinkers such as John Dewey. She had not heard the term assessment for learning.

It was full of strategies to engage students in those kinds of ways. So to ensure you’ve got a room full of people who know that they are required to have the information and share it. So that is something that is one of the techniques that I like, I think it’s from him (Wanda)

Significantly Wanda’s reason for using lollipop sticks has more to do with social constructivism, the idea of learning from each other, than AfL per se.

I try to make sure that they always have someone to talk to before we take anything up, so I do that and they now know, at the beginning of the year, they don’t always, that if I’m arranging them into groups their job is to learn from each other, because after that’s been done, I may call on anyone. So their job in the group is to get knowledge based on whatever task I’ve given to them and so ideally that I’m going to pull your name from this cup, keeps everyone sort of on their toes, but isn’t super risky because everyone has had the opportunity to review the material. So I would never do that in a situation where they had not been partnered to talk about something first (Wanda).

The use of lollipop sticks does make the conversational flow of the lesson seem stilted at times as she continuously stops and starts the discussion even though she includes students who typically would not usually speak. One girl, for example, speaks very quietly and is barely audible so she asks her partner to follow up her contribution. Again, this is like the AfL technique of phone-a-friend (Black et al. 2003) and yet, for Wanda it is just good teaching.

Conclusion

Both lessons discussed in this article are examples of effective English lessons that do not, as is currently the trend in England at least, focus overly on exams (Marshall 2017). Paul makes one reference to them in a fifty-minute lesson and Wanda takes five minutes out of an hour long lesson to talk about what the exam will contain as if it were something completely separate from the main business of the lesson, which is talking and writing about the Life of Pi. They are both in their way ‘doing English’ (Dixon 1967; Gibbons 2014; Marshall et al. 2018). What is significant is that in ‘doing English’ they are also ‘doing’ AfL and dialogic teaching. They are both continuously assessing the responses that pupils give and then asking more; their discursive style is cumulative.

What makes these two lessons interesting is that neither teacher would explicitly label these lessons as formative or dialogic and yet in practice they were both. The decisions that informed them, what they were both trying to do, was to make the students in front of them think about the books they were studying. Paul’s wish as an English teacher, for instance is that, ‘We would rather go in there unarmed with anything other than a book and a pen and sit down and read stories and talk about them together,’ (Paul). It is true that both had an idea of where the lesson was heading and were guiding the students towards it but even in that guidance there was no right answer. For Paul, ‘the great thing about Lord of the Flies is that it is utterly ambiguous’ and for Wanda, as she tells her students, it is ‘Good in fact preferable if you don’t have all the same titles and quotations’ (Wanda). Both echo Eaglestone, who says that the aim is ‘opening up’ literature (Eageston, 2019, 45). ‘Close reading’ then becomes ‘open ended, hard to pin down and shared creative activity’ (Eaglestone, 2019, 45–6).

This makes feedback that is formative, or cumulative, easier to do as the conversation can potentially take any direction. For Eaglestone, this is particularly so of English. Other subjects, he suggests, can potentially though not necessarily, ‘Try and cut down ambiguity, to avoid doubt’ whereas in English, ‘the point is to respond to the “simultaneous presence of many meanings” (Wood 2017, 47) rather than draw out one unambiguously’ (Eaglestone 2019, 45). Whether or not this is uniquely true of English, a point many would take issue with, it is clear that the teacher should, above all, listen to what is being said, assess the contribution formatively and respond cumulatively, dialogically.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bethan Marshall

Bethan Marshall is a senior lecturer in education and a former chair of the National Association for the Teaching of English. She specialises in issues relating to the teaching of English and assessment on which she has written extensively including her book English Teachers: An unofficial Guide and Testing English: Formative and summative practice in English. Her latest book compares English teaching across three countries Policy, Belief and Practice in the Secondary English Classroom: A Case Study Approach from Canada, England and Scotland. She has just edited a collection of essays on reading entitled The Bloomsbury Handbook of Reading Perspectives and Practices.