Australian teacher educators and teachers are become increasingly familiar with the notion of "Productive Pedagogies", itself the product of longitudinal research on school reform undertaken in Queensland, Australia (Lingard et al. 2001). One of Productive Pedagogies' strengths has been its efficacy for teachers to use as a language to talk about their pedagogical work and, hence, a way of reclaiming some of the ground on what constitutes good teaching. This paper examines the value of "Productive Pedagogies" as a metalanguage for developing pre-service teachers' knowledge and understanding of teaching. Drawing on pre-service teachers' observations of practice, the paper argues that Productive Pedagogies' language is not only useful in the development of pre-service teachers' critical understanding of teaching, but also in assisting them to recognise that the use of higher order thinking, connectedness, and recognition of and engaging with student differences within a supportive classroom is crucial to improved student outcomes. (Contains 1 figure and 4 footnotes.)