Eleven Beliefs About Student Talk

The more I observe students in schools, the more convinced I am that the best way to transform an ordinary classroom into a vibrant hive of learning is to let the kids talk. Most young people are naturally social and enjoy interacting with their peers. Why not figure out ways to channel those inclinations into productive educational conversations? To give you something to ponder on this topic, I’ve composed a list of eleven of my beliefs about student talk:

1. The people doing the talking are the people doing the thinking.

If you, the teacher, are doing most of the talking in class, you are probably physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day. Furthermore, you may have no idea whether your students know or understand anything you said to them. If you plan lessons that require students to do more talking, your students will be doing the thinking, which means they will be doing the learning, too.    

2.  Structured student conversation should occur multiple times in every instructional period.

This belief has two key components: the conversation should 1) be structured and 2) occur repeatedly. 1) Structure:  Free-form conversation (“Discuss this in your table groups…”) quickly degenerates into off-task chatting. Adding some structure (more specific topics or questions to address, sentence starters or frames, time limits, explicit rules about how the speaking is supposed to proceed, roles for each member of the conversation) will ensure that the talk time is effective. 2) Repeat occurrence:  Learners need brain breaks, and student talk is a great way to reset brains and reinforce understanding before, during, and after cognitive activities. Stopping to allow a two-minute partner share during a lecture not only allows students to explain what they’ve learned but it also wakes them up. Paired conversation could occur after every question the teacher asks during a class. A well-designed lesson provides numerous opportunities for students to talk to one another.        

3.  Full-class discussions, if they have to occur at all, should take place after the students have talked in pairs or other small groups.

I am not a fan of the full-class discussions. I didn’t enjoy them when I was in school. I don’t enjoy them now in professional learning scenarios as an adult. Full-class discussions are a boring beatdown. It’s a back-and-forth dialogue between a teacher or presenter and a handful of interested participants. Everyone else has mentally checked out or is waiting for that one blabbermouth to shut up. If you must have full-group discussions, at least let your students talk about the question or topic beforehand in smaller groupings where everyone can participate. That’s when the real learning occurs. The subsequent large-group discussion can be a quick check for understanding and an opportunity for students to ask the questions that came up as they were talking with their partners.  

4.  Students write like they speak. Teaching students to speak in academic register improves their speaking and writing abilities.

We don’t speak the same way in every situation. What might be appropriate with friends in a casual setting isn’t the way people speak in an academic or professional environment. Most adults have learned to speak in various language registers: formal, informal, academic, parental, etc. Teaching students to speak like experts gives them an automatic edge in the world. I’ve graded many a paper from a student who writes in teenspeak, their writing peppered with likes and you knows. Who can blame them if they have no awareness of shifting between language registers for various purposes? When you provide your students with templates for academic speech, show them how to link ideas together with transitional words and phrases, and equip them with academic vocabulary in your subject, you are teaching them a new language that, once it becomes more automatic, will transfer into their writing.    

5.  If I can explain it, I probably understand it.

Have you ever had that experience where you read about something or listen to someone explain a topic and then realize, when you attempt to tell someone else about it, that you have some significant gaps in your comprehension? Students shouldn’t discover they don’t understand something as they are taking a test over that topic. Asking students to explain concepts to one another allows them to check their own understanding. (I love the idea of one student explaining a topic and the other student paraphrasing what that person said after listening to the explanation.) The more you ask students to talk about your subject, the stronger their understanding will become.  

6.  Students need think time and writing time before they speak.

I’ve been guilty many times of posing a question to the entire class and instantly beginning a discussion over the topic. Of course, there was always one eager quick-thinker who jumped in to answer the question instantly. Many of the other students were still trying to form an answer as I was moving on to another question. Most, I fear, never even bothered with the thinking because they knew someone else would beat them to it. I learned to try this instead: I posed a thought-provoking question and allowed students a minute or two to write their response in their interactive notebook. Then, I asked students to discuss in pairs before calling on a few students at random to share their answers with the class. Providing that think time helped struggling students come up with something to say and gave all students a chance to develop deeper thoughts on paper instead of responding quickly in a more superficial way.

7.   Student talk doesn’t have to be a big deal if it’s an everyday occurrence.

Once my student became accustomed to interacting with one another, they knew what to do and did it willingly and automatically. I established “elbow partners” and “quads” so that there was no confusion when I asked them to turn and talk.  

8.  Students become more confident sharing their ideas with the class if they have had time to rehearse them with a smaller group first.

Speaking in front of the class is a fate worse than death for many students. Part of their trepidation comes from a fear of being wrong or of being made fun of for a “stupid” answer. When students have an opportunity to try out their responses in front of a significantly smaller audience, they become more confident when asked to share with the whole class. They also learn from the responses from others and may use what they’ve learned to refine their own response if called upon to share.   

9.  Putting a grade on student talk makes the talk inauthentic.

In the real world, we aren’t graded on the frequency or quality of our speaking in meetings and conversations. The value of conversations and discussions comes from the exchange of ideas, building onto these ideas, civil cognitive conflict, and the resulting learning that occurs. When teachers decide to grade discussions, the talk becomes selfish, with each student seeking to demonstrate whatever skills will earn the desired grade. Make the talk itself the reward. Emphasize the learning that occurs. Reinforce the moves the students make that you’d like to see more of in future discussions.  

10.  To effectively facilitate student talk, teachers have to plan ahead.

Low-level, closed-ended questions and topics don’t generate much conversation or student interest. Take the time to prepare stimulating ideas for students to talk about. Examine your lesson plans for the perfect moments to incorporate a check-in conversation or an open-ended question to spur further exploration. Bounce ideas off your colleagues in planning sessions to infuse speaking experiences throughout the lesson cycle to engage students at many levels.

11.  Students won’t get better at speaking if they don’t have frequent practice.

Don’t throw up your hands in defeat after the first attempt at promoting student conversation fizzles. “Our kids can’t…” is the phrase that killed more learning than any other one. I won’t get better at learning to speak Spanish if I don’t practice speaking with others. Similarly, students won’t get better at speaking unless they do it all the time. And the quality of their speaking won’t improve if teachers don’t give them practice speaking like experts. It may not be pretty at first. If you’ve attended the fall concert of first-year orchestra students, you know what I mean. But keep at it, and pretty soon you’ll have a symphony of conversation occurring automatically in your classroom.