SEL and Academic Discourse

Alaina was in a history class with a teacher that used lots of whole-group instruction practices and spent a lot of time lecturing to the class. Alaina tried to follow along, but the teacher spoke fast and used a lot of terms that she did not understand. She did her best to pass the class but the tests were hard and no matter what she did to prepare, she still fell short on the grade. She grew frustrated and checked out. The history teacher also assigned a lot of presentations. Alaina did not want to present in front of the class. She was afraid to ask her teacher for another assignment, so she just didn’t do it. The teacher met with the English language teacher and said that Alaina was just not doing anything in his class and she probably would not pass the class at this rate. The English-language teacher-provided suggestions for the teacher, but at this point, he had given up on Alaina. End-of-year report cards came, and Alaina did not pass the class or the state exam. She’d have to take the history class again. The following year, Alaina had a different teacher for history class. This teacher did things differently from day one. Students worked in groups a lot and had many opportunities to talk about what they were learning. The teacher provided prompts for discussions, and Alaina looked forward to each class. The content was still difficult, but she had opportunities to process the information she was learning. As a result, she became interesting in learning about history. The end of the year came, and this time, she not only passed the class, but she also passed the state exam.

Alaina experienced the type of classroom barriers that stifle language development: asking English learners and multilingual learners questions in front of the whole class, ineffective instructional practices, and a teacher who misunderstood her struggles.

Typically, teachers ask students to jump from reading a text right into writing. When this happens, students don’t have opportunities to connect deeply with a text. They might not even process important ideas, details, or facts, or form opinions. Processing information entails ample discussion with peers for testing, validating, expanding, debating, or developing knowledge beyond a superficial basis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many students received instruction virtually. During virtual learning, students mostly listened and read, but opportunities

to speak were lacking. So, it is not a surprise to see that the 2020 World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment scores showed little growth in speaking in grades 5–12 and negative growth was double for grades K–1 (Sahakyan & Cook, 2021). In Examining English Learner Testing, Proficiency, and Growth: Before and Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic (Sahakyan & Cook, 2021), researchers at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research remind us that talking is still one of schools’ great challenges. Virtual learning allowed students to disengage and did not encourage them to talk about their learning. Many students kept their cameras off and typed in the chat box instead of unmuting. This learning gap has impacted student growth with speaking.

Couple the lack of speaking with the rise in mental health issues and students keeping many of their struggles secret from caretakers and educators. Isolation and interrupted schooling brought on depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. As a result, these mental health issues have impacted student learning and achievement. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), and Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) have declared a national emergency in children’s mental health, citing the serious toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on top of existing challenges (AAP News, 2021).

Teaching social-emotional skills is hard, time-consuming, and necessary. However, educators can teach SEL skills throughout the day within each subject instead of only teaching skills in isolation (Cohen, Opatosky, Savage, & Stevens 2021). Learning SEL skills starts with students having ample opportunities to talk with peers and teachers using the kind of language scaffolds that we share throughout this book. Students need to talk to adults, peers, and their family members. Planned discourse in the classroom helps promote communication in students. The more opportunities to speak, the more educators can help students meet their needs. Speaking is integral to student growth academically, socially, and emotionally. Opportunities for discourse help students feel more welcome, accepted, and included. Discourse also provides a way for students to be able to discuss what they are experiencing. So, what does that mean for teachers?

Teachers need to be intentional about providing opportunities for students to speak, especially since students grew accustomed to not speaking during virtual learning. In fact, they might not have spoken much before. We know that English learners who have been in the United States for six or more years and are still labeled long-term English learners were probably sitting quietly in the back of the room or also perceived as shy and ignored.

To overcome past inequities, teachers should strategically plan activities to encourage discussions throughout a lesson. If students are not talking to each other, they are not fully processing what they are learning. To truly understand what they are learning, students need to use all four domains of language: (1) speaking, (2) listening, (3) reading, and (4) writing. This chapter shares ways of using peer interaction, after-reading activities to delve deeper into reading comprehension, and higher-level academic discourse for students to master the content they are studying. In this chapter, you will learn how discourse benefits SEL and vice versa, how cooperative learning supports SEL across all content areas, and how to integrate SEL into discourse development, along with practical advice on discourse development for elementary teachers, administrators, and families.

When students engage in conversations, they get to practice SEL competencies. These include social awareness and relationship skills. Specifically, engaging in discourse supports hearing and understanding perspectives, demonstrating concern, empathy, and compassion, and displaying gratitude. Students learn to take turns speaking and listening and learn how to respectfully agree or disagree. They can find validation in discussing what they learned. We know that when someone teaches something to someone else, it validates what the teacher knows. Giving students opportunities to discuss what they are learning with a peer can reinforce learning. This process can go back and forth and help foster confidence in learners by instilling social awareness skills.

Engaging in discourse also helps students see the perspectives of others. Hearing others’ ideas can help students see how their peers learn and process, which can help them learn to empathize and be more compassionate. They may learn that other students have similar experiences to their own and may see that they are not alone in their thinking.

Working with other students helps students see the strengths in others. If only a few students talk in a class, other students will not have opportunities to show their knowledge or unique abilities; they may come to believe their ideas don’t matter. Giving all students time to talk helps them see that their opinions and ideas matter. It also helps the class to see that everyone has something to contribute.

Finally, to learn English, English learners need opportunities to talk and listen. They need to hear their peers talk. They need a safe space to practice speaking English. Requiring English learners to speak in front of the class without the chance to rehearse can be intimidating and harmful. The experience can cause trauma to the English learner and may discourage them from talking. English learners,

especially newcomers, can speak about their learning but they need partners or small-group opportunities to do that in. Talking, discourse, interaction—whatever we choose to call it—is critically important for multilingual learners, English learners, and newcomers.

The Research on Peer Interactions and the Benefits

Research shows a clear connection between healthy peer interactions and increased self-confidence and social awareness. The following is a list of facts detailing the positive effects of including discourse development in the class curriculum. • David W. Johnson, Geoffrey Murayama, Roger T. Johnson, Deborah Nelson, and Linda Skon’s (1981) meta-analysis and Robert E. Slavin’s (1989) best-evidence synthesis find that cooperative learning, in comparison to competitive and individualistic learning, has very strong effects on achievement, socialization, motivation, and personal self-development. • Students will likely achieve more and develop more positive relationships if teachers structure students' academic goals cooperatively early on in the school year. Further, educators and students alike will begin to associate higher levels of achievement with more positive peer relationships (Roseth, Johnson, & Johnson, 2008). • There is overwhelming evidence that cooperative learning as a pedagogical practice has had a profound effect on student learning and socialization (Slavin, 2014). • Placing students in groups and expecting them to work together will not necessarily promote cooperation. Group members often struggle with what to do. Discord can occur as members grapple with the task demands as well as managing the processes involved in learning, such as dealing with conflicting opinions among members or with students who loaf and contribute little to the group’s goal (Johnson & Johnson, 1990). It becomes even more difficult for English learners with the added stress and tasks for learning English (Calderón, 1993).