From Silence to Conversation - Jerry Koontz

Tonya Ward Singer points out that we learn language by using language – it’s just that simple.  The shift from quiet classrooms to rich speaking environments is the next great leap in language and content instruction.   In high school we write, write, write all the time but it’s a rare formative or summative assessment that actually focuses on the spoken word.  It is estimated that EAL students spend less than 2% of their classroom day partaking in academic talk (Arreaga-Mayer  1996).  They need focused, structured academic talk in order to not only learn the language but in order to be on equal footing with all students in the classroom.  All students will benefit from an equal playing field that every student can partake in.  Shouldn’t all students be involved in peer conversations each and every day in each and every class?  These discussions will build language and content knowledge for all students, not just the vocal few.  The benefits of peer conversations are many ranging from increased engagement and deeper thinking to the increased usage of academic language and collaboration. Using different strategies like Think-pair-Share and QSSSA help make classroom conversations more routine, meaningful and authentic. Having students share their ideas with useful sentence structures that are scaffolded guarantees all students have equal access to the conversations.   Since our teacher training days, teacher talk time has always been a topic of concern for educators.  Honestly, I believe we are barking up the wrong tree here as I truly have empathy for my colleagues who teach content classes and sometimes find that they have to control the narrative by speaking to the class.  We need to focus more on an asset-based approach which brings the focus back to the students. We should be looking for ways that students contribute their ideas through classroom conversation.  Could you imagine what learning would be like if in controlled and focused conversations students communicated authentically for 75% of the time in each class for the whole day? It would be revolutionary. Practice makes perfect for sure but more importantly, when it comes to speaking, students will either use it, or lose it!

Calderón, M, et al (2020). Breaking down the wall: Essential shifts for English 

learners’ success, Corwin.