8. The nature of classroom communication influencing fellow students’ thinking or behavior, or by triggering procedural and control talk by the teacher. (“Jason, it’s not your turn; I only call on students who raise their hands.”) • Answering a question with a question: Instead of answering a teacher’s “test” question directly, the
student responds with a question of her own, either for clarification or as a stalling tactic (“Do you mean X?”). Either way, the effect is to shift the discussion or questioning to content or topics that are safer and more familiar. • Silence: The student says nothing in response to a speaker’s comments or to an invitation to speak. The
speaker could be either the teacher or a fellow student. The silence makes the speaker less likely to continue the current topic, and more likely to seek a new one. • Eye contact, gaze aversion, and posture: The student looks directly at the teacher while the teacher is
speaking, or else deliberately averts gaze. The student may also adopt any variety of postures while sitting (sit up straight vs slouching). As we discussed earlier in this chapter, the timing of eye gaze depends partly on cultural expectations that the student brings to school. But it may also represent a deliberate choice by the student—a message to the teacher and to classmates. The same can be said about sitting posture. In classroom situations, listening is conventionally indicated by looking directly at the teacher, and either sitting up straight or leaning slightly forward. Although these behaviors can be faked, they tend to indicate, and to be taken as, a show of interest in and acceptance of what a speaker is saying. By engaging in or avoiding these behaviors, therefore, students can sometimes influence the length and direction of a discussion or activity.
Using classroom talk to stimulate students’ thinking The various features of classroom talk characterize the communication of most teachers and students, at least when they are in a classroom and “doing school”. (Communication outside of school is a different matter: then teachers as well as students may speak, listen, and behave quite differently!) As you might suppose, the extent and balance among the features varies depending on grade level, curriculum area, and personalities of students or teachers. But failing to use a classroom register at all can easily create communication problems. Suppose, for example, that a teacher never asks informal test questions. In that case the teacher will learn much less than otherwise about her students’ knowledge of the current material. Then also suppose that a student does not understand teachers’ questions as test questions. That student may easily respond in ways that seem disrespectful (Teacher: “How much is 23 x 42?” Student: “I don’t know; how much do you think it is?”) (Bloome, et al., 2005). The classroom talk register, then, constrains how communication between teachers and students can take place, but it also gives teachers and students a “language” for talking about teaching and learning. Given this doubleedged reality, how can teachers use the classroom talk register to good advantage? How, in particular, can teachers communicate in ways that stimulate more and better thinking and discussion? In the next, final section of the chapter, we offer some suggestions for answering these questions. As you will see, the suggestions often reinforce each other. They are more like a network of ideas, not a list of priorities to be considered or followed in sequence.
Probing for learner understanding How do you know whether a student understands what you are saying? One clue, of course, is by whether the student is looking at and concentrating on you and your comments. But this clue is not foolproof; we have all had 172 http://www.saylor.org/courses/psych303/
The Saylor Foundation
