Research has shown that proper use of classroom discourse can strengthen teacher-student rapport, create an open and supportive learning environment, and provide students with new ways of exploring information that can lead to deeper understanding of new concepts.
In the typical classroom of yesteryear, classroom talk was a controlled, mostly one-way exercise. Teachers gave directions, conveyed information, and elicited correct answers from neat rows of students. Those who could read the teacher's mind had a definite advantage.
Decades of research on classroom discourse—the range and variety of dialogue that can happen in a classroom—have yielded rich information about how talk can be used to benefit student learning, build teacher-student rapport, cultivate fair treatment and high expectations for all students, and determine students' level of understanding. Yet the predominant mode of classroom talk is still the teacher-centered initiate-respond-evaluate (IRE) model, which often falls short as an effective way of teaching, experts say.
"Schools and classrooms have hardly changed at all in the last century. Students sit in rows or tables facing the front of the room. Administrators and families expect teachers to be 'teaching,' and that's usually defined as standing in front of the classroom addressing students," says Nancy Frey, associate professor of literacy at San Diego State University. "This sets up an unequal communication dynamic of teacher-dominated discourse" that tends to serve curricula emphasizing knowledge acquisition over knowledge generation, she explains.
Paying Attention to Talk
In the groundbreaking book Classroom Discourse: The Language of Teaching and Learning (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2001), Harvard researcher Courtney Cazden stresses that teachers need to study the variety of talk that goes on in their classrooms to help make teaching and learning work better for all students. The juxtaposition of more diverse classrooms with the wider world's demand for 21st century skills such as problem solving, effective speaking and writing, and collaborating with persons of diverse backgrounds makes understanding the role of classroom talk, or discourse, even more urgent than in the past, Cazden notes.
- Affect what counts as knowledge.
- Impact students' educational opportunities.
- May foster certain levels of communication.
In classroom discourse situations where teachers ask questions with certain answers in mind, the teacher maintains control over what counts as knowledge. In such scenarios, the teacher may ignore a student's uncertainty about content or counterquestions that appear tangential.
Cazden also emphasizes that, to go beyond the traditional teacher-question–student-response format, teachers need to have a strong grasp of the content beyond the current lesson. Having that knowledge allows a teacher to anticipate or negotiate the different directions students might take as they grapple with a new concept.
For example, Cazden cites the case of a 5th grade math student who insisted in one class exercise that to get from 8 to 4, she only had to "minus one-half" from 8. Even though other students correctly disagreed and the topic was outside the planned lesson, the teacher used the student's response as an opening to discuss with students fractions as functions. When teachers allow for student discourse, lessons can take unexpected turns, but students will develop a deeper understanding of content within a much richer context.
Taking Action to Improve Discourse
Teachers who want to delve into the underlying dynamics of classroom discourse need to find ways to reflect on what happens in class daily. Setting up a video camera offers one way to gather information to analyze.
When elementary teacher Violet Dickson saw video of her classroom discourse with her 4th grade students, she was surprised to find that she sometimes answered her own questions instead of giving students time to process them. "I couldn't believe it. I'm a seasoned teacher, and I know I'm not supposed to do that," recalls Dickson, a K–5 teacher of gifted students at W. S. Ryan Elementary School in Denton, Tex.
Allowing a video camera to roll and inviting outside observers to take notes as part of an action-research project on classroom discourse was worthwhile for Dickson. She gained insight into her questioning techniques and confirmed that students in her noisy classrooms actually were staying on task.
The project also helped eight other elementary school teachers learn more about discourse in their classrooms. In one 2nd grade class, a teacher worried about a small group of students who were chattering about the new King Kong movie while they should have been discussing insect habitats. Holding off a reprimand, she discovered that they were making connections between the fictional jungle behemoth and the strength of an ant that they were observing moving an outsized leaf. The teacher was able to use the moment to help students probe into the ways that organisms adapt to their environment over time by gaining traits that aid in their survival.
- Ask more open-ended questions.
- Encourage students to ask their own questions.
- Give students more time to research and explore problems.
- Give students opportunities for making choices about lines of inquiry in a topic. (For example, in a unit on Japanese culture, one student may want to do a tea ceremony, another calligraphy, and a third Zen gardens. Students build knowledge when they share information and make connections between topics.)
When teachers model inquiry in the classroom by asking questions such as "I wonder why that happened?" or "Why did that occur?" students learn to pose their own questions.
- Students should talk quietly in small groups when the teacher is directly instructing one group.
- During brainstorming, students should take turns and not talk over one another.
- Teachers should review rules of debate when discussing topics (e.g., working to support opinions, sharing by turns, using specific amounts of time for delivery).
Giving students more opportunities to talk and discuss knowledge extends what Cazden calls "speaking rights," which traditionally have been closely held by teachers. Allowing students to voice their opinions, personal connections to content, and insights makes them part of a group that helps to define knowledge, Dickson says.
Talking for Formative Assessment
In their ASCD book Checking for Understanding: Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom (2006), San Diego State University professors Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey devote an entire chapter to using oral language to check for student understanding. By paying attention to their talk with students or listening to talk among students, teachers can gauge students' learning and tailor lessons at the moment or as a follow-up.
One of the most useful discourse strategies, says Frey, is "accountable talk," a strategy developed by Lauren Resnick at the University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning. Typically, accountable talk involves a commitment from students to work with a partner to stay on topic, use information that is accurate and appropriate for the topic, and think deeply about what the partner says.
- Press for clarification and explanation.
- Require justification of proposals and challenges.
- Recognize and challenge misconceptions.
- Demand evidence for claims and arguments.
- Interpret and use each other's statements.
In their own college classroom discussions, both Fisher and Frey say that they resist the urge to respond to each student comment because that's where evaluation often "creeps in." Instead, they invite other students to use accountable talk strategies to respond. "We know we are doing a good job when we can get a string of students to talk without us interjecting," Fisher says. He recommends that teachers prepare some rich questions in advance by brainstorming with Bloom's taxonomy for inspiration and then select a few questions for classroom discussion.
"The truly great teachers know how to ask questions that elicit unexpected answers. They then analyze that student discourse to figure out what learning needs to occur next," explains Fisher.
