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After a year of primarily virtual learning, many students have forgotten how to have an academic conversation or work collaboratively in groups. Whether your students are having trouble due to the pandemic or just because they never truly mastered academic discussions, we have some strategies you can use to get your students on track.

In most classrooms, teacher talk eats up 70-80% of lessons (Fisher, Frey & Rothenberg 2008). The goal is to bring this down to 5-10%. Teachers know that students learn through experiences. Talking is as important as hands-on learning. When students are given ongoing opportunities for interaction, they are more actively engaged, take ownership of their learning, build better communication skills, develop language, and feel more comfortable in the classroom setting. However, powerful academic discussions do not emerge naturally. Students need explicit and intentional instruction on how to participate in an academic discussion.

Expect students to speak in complete sentences.

When students are responding in our class, we do not allow one-word answers. If a student provides a one-word response, we allow them to restate it, provide them with a sentence starter to help them answer in a complete sentence. This allows for consistent modeling of appropriate grammar and sentence structure. In addition, they learn to restate questions, retain more information, and write in complete sentences.

Create discussion norms.

Just like it's essential to set up expectations at the beginning of the year, it's also important to create a set of norms that your students will use for discussion. We use the speaking and listening content standards to develop our norms. Putting your norms in kid-friendly language is vital because they need to know and understand the expectations.

Explicitly model the expectations.

One benefit to coteaching is having more than one teacher! Take the opportunity to model what an academic discussion looks like with your co-teacher. We model academic conversations using the discussion norms that we have established while the students observe. If you aren't coteaching, you can use the fishbowl strategy. Strategically choose model students to participate in the conversation while the other students observe. As a class, notice and wonder about how it went. Refer back to your discussion norms so that students can see what they look and sound like in action.

Use Conversation Cues.

Conversation cues allow teachers to step back while students engage in their own conversations. We introduced them slowly, starting with agree, disagree, and add on. In addition, we begin with non-academic topics. This helps our students to learn the protocol without heavy content, making the task too difficult. " Would you rather? " questions are an engaging and fun way to introduce this protocol.

Additionally, you can use talking chips. Sometimes students only call on their friends, and one or two students might dominate the conversation. We give everyone a red and yellow counter. They keep it on red and then flip it to yellow when they have had a turn to speak. After all of the chips are yellow, the group can call on anyone.

*Digital Option: All students start with the hand raise button turned on. They turn it off when they speak.*
Support use of academic vocabulary with word walls.

We throw a lot of new vocabulary at students on a daily basis. Hence, we recognize the need to provide them with opportunities to actively practice using these words and phrases in context. Consider posting a word wall with words, visuals, and meanings and encourage students to refer to it when speaking about academic topics. We can't expect them to use the latest complex terms during discussions without constant and clear reminders.

There are many ways to provide opportunities for interaction in your classroom. The most important thing is to provide the necessary modeling, instruction, and scaffolds for success. However you implement it, let the students talk! It won't always be perfect, but it will be worth it.

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Turning Basic Conversation into Academic Discourse

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After a year of primarily virtual learning, many students have forgotten how to have an academic conversation or work collaboratively in groups. Whether your students are having trouble due to the pandemic or just because they never truly mastered academic discussions, we have some strategies you can use to get your students on track.

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This teacher-created scaffolding tool can elevate classroom dialogue, empowering students to express themselves while learning from the ideas of others.

Ever been in the midst of a classroom discussion where students are bubbling over with ideas, eager to share? It can look and sound like lots of voices calling out and talking over each other while quieter students try to find a place to enter the fray. You don't want to squash anyone's enthusiasm, but how do you ensure that every student has the opportunity to truly express themselves and hear the ideas of their classmates?

Students' ability to clearly communicate with others in conversation is a critical literacy skill. While goals for speaking are a part of elementary school standards, beginning in kindergarten, teaching talk can feel tricky; it's often hard for students to know where to begin or the next best place to go when responding to someone. A "Progression of Talk" chart can be very helpful in this work-defining starting and ending points for students, as well as all the points in between, when engaging in conversation.

The "Progression of Talk," by Cynthia Satterlee, begins with a student saying anything at all and grows to a student saying something relevant, adding on to what was previously said or disagreeing, clarifying, improving, revising their thinking, provoking more thought, or extending and elaborating-all necessary skills for any form of discourse.

When Cynthia shared this progression during a workshop, I nodded and thought, "Yes, just what I've been looking for!" She helped me see how talk could grow across a range of grade levels and subject areas. As I studied the progression, I thought it could become an even more powerful tool for students and teachers by adding a series of sample talk prompts at each level.
Gwen Blumberg
Observation

The first step of teaching kids how to lift the level of their talk begins with observation: simply paying attention to what students are saying to each other. Is it connected to the original speaker's sentiments or wildly off-topic? Are they putting thoughts into words and able to keep a conversation going or inadvertently shutting it down? Match your observations to steps on the progression and then lean into instruction.

What this looks like inside the classroom:

Providing students with talking prompts like "I agree..." or "I feel differently..." can help them make a connection between what the speaker is saying and what they are adding to grow the conversation.

Similarly, empowering kids to use the phrase "I'd like to add..." helps build a bridge from someone else's idea to their own.

Many elementary-aged children love to share their opinions when they disagree with others. I have heard children do this with short phrases-"That's not right!"-or by sharing how they see things differently without acknowledging the original speaker's ideas.

Introducing Talk Prompts

Displaying talk prompts once you have introduced them to your class can be a powerful scaffold. It's best to write them with students while explicitly explaining the thought process behind the prompts:

"One way we are adding on to what other kids in class have to share is to start by saying, 'Something you just said...' Let's write that on a big sticky note and place it here on the board where we can all see it. We can work on growing our talk by using this language whenever we want to share something connected to the conversation."

This note can then be referred to prior to conversations, with a reminder: "Remember, we are trying to grow our talking skills by saying something that connects to what the person before you said."

Next, point to and provide the talk prompts to help scaffold this work. Slowly building a progression tool with students is much more powerful than displaying it in its entirety at the onset of digging into these skills.

The Evolution of Talk

This process takes time. Support conversations with the talk prompts until students make them their own. If a child begins speaking without them, you can gently say the prompt and encourage them to try again, scooping up this language as their running start. When I am doing this, it reminds me of helping someone learn how to float. At first, my hands are firmly under the person, but soon my words become gentle fingertips just beneath the surface-providing reassurance, stability, and support.

I take my figurative hands completely away when I hear kids incorporating the language of this progression in natural back-and-forths. This might sound like a child adding on to something they've said to clarify a point-"Let me try to say that in a clearer way" or "I'd like to add on to what I said before." And another child sharing how their thinking has changed as a result of considering the thoughts and perspectives of others-"I used to think... but now I think..."

Not only does this exchange sound good, but it honors the thoughts of all speakers and helps kids see how their words are interconnected.

It's important to remember that this progression chart isn't a set of discrete steps or tied to particular grade levels; it can be more fluid depending on what students are saying, how they are interacting, or the focus of your curriculum. For example, with fifth graders in a debate unit, lean into talk prompts that allow students not only to press for more information but to respectfully express differing viewpoints.

As kids grow in this work and try on other successful ways to lift their talk, notice, name, and celebrate what they are saying, then add it to your shared chart. Empower students to use this cocreated visual to gauge their own progress, connect their language to the progression, and set goals to grow. Elevating talk skills in a dynamic way enables students to truly express themselves both in and out of the classroom, shifting responses like "What?!" to "I'd love to hear you say more..."

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Teaching Students How to Have an Academic Discussion

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This teacher-created scaffolding tool can elevate classroom dialogue, empowering students to express themselves while learning from the ideas of others.

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EL Education - Collaborative Culture: Academic Talk

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Given how socially motivated our students can be, you’d think they’d be pros when it comes to talking about a task! Most students do not intuitively know how to have productive academic discussions, however. Asked to investigate or analyze a topic or begin a project, some students will hold back and…

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Introducing Upper Elementary Students to Academic Discourse

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With a little support, young learners can pick up the skills necessary to conduct successful classroom discussions.

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DIT Labs - Fairfax County Public Schools

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Encouraging Academic Conversations With Talk Moves