Source: Pedagogical Leadership K-3: Learnteachlead.ca
Explore: Talk in the Classroom
Possible Questions to Explore
British scholar and teacher educator, James Britton (1983) wrote “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk”.
“Educators need to be aware of classroom talk – who is talking, how they are talking, and to whom and about what they are talking- should exist at every grade. Talk supports the thinking process and talk develops the reader and writer before beginning each of those learning processes.(Putting Faces on Data by Lyn Sharratt and Michael Fullan, 2012)
Accountable talk is teachers and students in dialogue to understand their own perspectives and the perspectives of others.
- What is accountable/ purposeful talk? What does that entail?
- What actions can we take to give students more opportunities to express their voice?
- What gets in the way of increasing student talk in the classroom?
Print Resources to support your inquiry questions.
Grand Conversations in Primary Classrooms(Link to Resource)
This monograph from The Capacity Building series explores the kind of talk that enables students to build comprehensions skills, analyze rich texts, explore different perspectives, negotiate meaning and critically question texts. It also includes practical collaborative structures for teachers to use to open up conversations in the classroom which allows students to take the lead and engage in meaningful conversations about texts.
Student Voice: Transforming Relationships (Link to Resource)
Every student should feel that he or she belongs, is a valuable contributor to his or her surroundings, and deserves the opportunity to succeed. This monograph highlights what we are learning about student voice and the pedagogy of listening.
Let’s Talk about Listening(Link to Resource)
This monograph explains the principles and strategies for creating a listening classroom, as well astalking about listening as a social, metacognitive connection to speaking, reading and writing skills.
Steps to English Proficiency - STEP - Oral Language Continuum: Observable Language Behaviours Grades 1- 3(Link to Resource)
Educator teams can use the Oral STEP continuum to assess and record evidence of students’ progress gathered through day-to-day classroom learning experiences. Information from STEP, gathered over time and in various learning contexts, will be useful for administrators, teachers, students and families in supporting the learning and teaching of English Language Learners.
Maximizing Student Mathematical Learning in Early Years(Link Resource)
This monogrpah highlights the five productive talk moves of revoicing, repeating, reasoning, adding-on and waiting.
Story Telling and Story Writing(Link to Resource)
Storytelling and talking about their writing allows student to rehearse and revise stories, and creates an atmosphere for free writing. This monograph provides specific references to the use of storytelling and story discussion to motivate and enhance story writing.
Fostering Literacy Success for First Nations, Métis and Inuit Students(Link to Resource)
This monograph explores the key issues, factors and strategies that support literacy success for FNMI students in schools. A classroom that honours FNMI learners will necessarily adopt a bilingual (multilingual) approach to teaching standard English or French.
Video Resources to support your inquiry questions.
Lucy West: Classroom Discourse(Link to Resource)
Lucy West shares her thinking about strategies to encourage talk in the classroom. She highlights the importance of educators slowing down to find out what the learners in the classroom are hearing, as well as useful tools to launch conversation in the classroom.
Lucy West: Types of Talk(Link to Resource)
Lucy West shares that 90% of the talk in classrooms is focused on recitation. She claims that we need to raise the level of the quality of discourse in our classroomsteaching our students to collaborate, listen, argue, reason and question as students discuss and dialogue with each other.
Lucy West:Barriers to Talk(Link to Resource)
Lucy West describes the barriers that exist in school settings which effect student talk in classrooms.
Carmel Crevola:Purposeful –Dynamic-Talk (Link to Resource)
Crevola explains that as young students engage in talk in a play-based classroom, it is important and necessary to make the talk purposeful and dynamic.
Allan Luke: Indigenous Education - Know Your Own Story(Link to Resource)
All of us have an engagement with land, place, kin and indigeneity. Our education system historically moves us from a place of narrative to exposition. Recognize the power of story. Know your own story first.
Other Resources to support your inquiry questions.
Primary Reading Discussion Paper(Link to Resource)
This large resource has a number of video clips about talk. A number of professionals address topics such as: the importance of talk; developing oral language development; purposeful talk; classroom talk; effective questioning.
Supporting English Language Learners in Kindergarten: A practical guide for Ontario Educators(Link to Resource)
This document is a resource and tool for teachers, administrators, and other school staff as they support English Language Learners in achieving the overall expectations of the Kindergarten Program. It will help them provide a quality beginning school experience for English Language Learners.
COnsolidating Your Learning
Potential Reflection Questions
- What was added to my/our thinking today? (e.g. Before I thought… Now I think…)
- What does this mean for my role? (e.g. So what? Now what?)
- How does a deeper understanding of dialogue and discourse in the classroom support all learners?
- If we expand opportunities for students to have a stronger voice in classroom and school learning, how will we identify the impact of this action on student learning?