Prof. Neil Mercer

Workshop Overview

From research in psychology, neuroscience, linguistics and education, we now know that the acquisition and use of spoken language is closely linked to the development of young people’s skills in learning and reasoning. An important aspect of this concerns their ability to become more metacognitively and metalinguistically aware – and their teachers can play an important role in this development. I will explain why this is the case and use evidence from schools-based research to set out some practical implications for classroom practice and curriculum design.

Biography

Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and Director of Oracy Cambridge: the Centre for Effective Spoken Communication, at the Cambridge college Hughes Hall. He is a psychologist whose research has focused on the development of children’s spoken language and reasoning abilities and teachers’ role in that development. He has worked extensively

and internationally with teachers, researchers and educational policy makers.  He was given the Oevre Award by the European Association for Research into Learning and Instruction and the John Nisbet Fellowship by the British Educational Research Association for outstanding contributions to educational research. His books include Words and Minds and Interthinking: putting talk to work. https://www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/academic/our-people/seniors- members/neil-mercer/