tell ol teacher let my children talk

Tell Ol' Teacher, Let My Children Talk

I spent the last weekend at the Asilomar Reading Conference. I learned

some handy new reading/vocabulary tactics (No Prep Foldable Bingo,

yes! TMAO's "Answer Book," ooo!) and was reminded of some good old

ones that I learned and then shelved in some dark recess of my

professional mind.

My Big Learning, however, came from the English Learner focus of this

year's conference. No one spoke to my epiphany directly, but everyone

talked around it until it finally sunk in. I realized a fundamental

issue with my teaching. Basically: I talk too much. Or perhaps, more

precisely: They talk too little.

I've been pushing myself to offer students more independent time,

enabled partially by my having a smaller class (23! Is this Heaven, or

just Vermont?) and mainly by my having access to materials that make

such a time worthwhile. But at the conference I came to understand

that even during Direct Instruction on reading or math, there's no

reason for me to any longer engage in the rote

teacher-question/student-answer when my ELLs have such a need for

opportunities to speak and listen. I'm a fourth-year teacher, now, I

need to let go a little.

I've known this all year, since I made my return from a year of almost

pure Direct Instruction as a math/writing teacher last year. But I was

hesitant to allow frequent pair-shares or group-discussions because I

deluded myself into thinking that a) the pace of my lessons didn't

permit such constant interruptions and b) that students would never

focus on the subject I asked them to discuss.

For the pacing, I've discovered that pair-shares and group-discussions

actually speed up the discussions. Usually, when asking a discussion

question whole-class I'll give a painful amount of wait time and then

call on a kid at a smattering of my six groups. Turning the discussion

over to the groups however, even if only for a minute or just a half,

means that at least one, and usually two kids at each group can talk.

For the focus, I've accepted that not every group will spend every

syllable on the subject I've given, but most will. Positive

reinforcement, good questions, and good material will raise the

percentage, and those are factors I feel confident I can control.

Besides, two-thirds of twelve kids talking at a time still represents

greater learning than a hundred percent of one teacher.