Creating an Environment Where Language Flourishes
- A Resource for Elementary Classroom Teachers
Academic Discussions
How do you prepare your students for academic discussions? How do you ensure equity of voice during interactions?
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?
"The one who does the talking does the learning"
Lev Vygotsky
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Oral proficiency in English contributes to English Literacy development.
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Build in instructional time for pair and small group work, so that students can collaborate, interact with each other, and engage in academic conversations in English and their home languages.
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More time should be given to talking in the classroom. Talking involves meaningful interactions that have an academic purpose and support learning.
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Explicitly teach students why talk is important, how it contributes to learning and the procedures and routine for productive talk.
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WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?
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Strategies for Effective Talk
Watch this video to see how these students are provided with guidelines and structured talk times and how their teachers set high expectations for talk.
Source: Edutopia
Turn and Talk is the foundational structured conversation skills that teaches students the routines and procedures of having a conversation.
Accountable discussion empowers students to draw up arguments based on evidence. Students learn how to respect the views of their peers while strengthening their communication skills. Watch a bilingual teacher using Accountable Talk with her students.
The purpose of this activity is to help students strengthen and clarify academic ideas. Each time students talk with a partner, they build from and borrow the ideas and language of previous partners trying to make their answer stronger each time with better evidence, examples, and explanations.
Video Clip: 4th Science - Stronger-Clearer (Jeff Zwiers)
The “Listening Ladder” is a helpful tool for reminding students how to be a good listener. From Keys To Literacy Blog.
LEARN MORE:
The intent of this website is to help you explore ways to think deeply and specifically about oral language in your classroom, across grade levels and the school curriculum. You can examine explicit strategies and structures to support oral language development, download tools and resources to support your own instruction, assess students using our observation protocol, and join the conversation about these strategies and resources with other teachers.
Three Strategies for Enriching the Quantity and Quality of Classroom Talk
See article by Jeff Zwiers, Susan O'Hara, and Robert Pritchard
Jeff Zwier's site is focused on helping educators develop their practices and expand their sets of effective tools for teaching diverse learners. It includes videos, graphic organizers, activities, language models, and publications.
