Over the past few years the question of whether the lecture is an effective teaching method has been one of the most heatedly debated topics in the field of higher education. While research on the effectiveness of lectures has been carried out since at least the 1960s, the value of the lecture has been increasingly questioned recently for a number of reasons that include waning lecture attendance rates by students, the heightened emphases on active learning and interactive modes of teaching, and technological advances that allow for the instructional component of lectures to be delivered online. The recent discussions on the lecture are often driven by passionate opinions and tend to depict the lecture either at its very worst or as a romantic ideal. In this paper the authors try to move beyond the polarised and often polemical perspectives that characterise the debates and consider both the potential problems and the possible pedagogical benefits of the lecture. They propose that the lecture remains a valuable teaching method for both practical and pedagogical reasons. However, the authors also suggest that in many cases lectures need to be improved and their scope broadened to incorporate more dialogic, active and interactive teaching and learning approaches. Recent descriptions of lecture practices suggest that in many institutions the lecture has already evolved beyond the traditional idea of a unidirectional monologue and that the lecture format is becoming increasingly interactive (Dawson, 2015; Palaima, 2014). It is also important that lectures are used in combination with a range of other teaching methods to provide flexibility and diversity for students as well as to enhance their learning. Thus, while the lecture remains a useful mode of teaching, the authors suggest that more innovative approaches to lecturing as well as alternatives to lectures are needed to adapt to a changing educational environment.