Building Thinking and Language Skills

Did you ever think that getting students to expand their thinking skills and increase their language skills at the same time could be easy? It all comes down to the questions you ask and how you have the students express their answers. With just a couple of little changes many instructors can increase their student engagement along with developing deeper processing and language skills.

One of the main ways to build language skills in everyone is by using the language in conversations. Classroom instructors providing students with many opportunities to speak has been shown to impact not only the students’ comprehension but also their language skills (Hassinger-Das, Toub, Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2017).  As simple as it sounds, it is very daunting if they are not allowed to practice.

This is where classroom expectations need to be established.  The instructor must know and share with the students what he/she is expecting. Having clear signals for the students so they know when to talk and when to listen should be established (Krkovic,, Wüstenberg, & Greiff, 2016). Will the students be discussing in small groups or in pairs? How will they share with the whole class? These are just a couple of questions that should be answered prior to implementing student discussions.

Conversation not only builds language skills but it can also have an impact on building students’ critical thinking and comprehension skills (Krkovic,, Wüstenberg, & Greiff, 2016).  A major key is in the questions the teacher asks the students to discuss. Lin et al. (2015) provided evidence that when the teachers kept the questions open-ended and less specific the students expanded their discussion deeper into the topic. The key is to use carefully thought-out questions, which allows the students to draw their conclusions. It is also important to provide the students with time to reflect with each other after everyone has shared (Lin, etal., 2015).

Steps in implementing classroom discussions

 First, will the students be discussing in small groups or partners? How will the students provide you with feed-backs? Then, teachers should  have higher-order questions ready. Also teachers should make sure they have set their expectation for the class discussion. Below are some ideas teachers might consider using to implement class discussion to the build thinking and language skills in their classrooms:

·      Have a pre-made list of higher-order questions for the students to discuss.

·      When reporting back have the students share what their partner or group said.

·      Use follow-up questions such as, “Can you expand on that?”

·      Have the students unpack their thinking by explaining how they arrived at their answers.

·      If they are incorrect, ask them if this aligns with what the other groups are saying, before simply filling in the correct answer.

·      Make sure you have the students verify how their information is correct.

·      Have them make life connections to the situations they are discussing.

  After you have heard from the students about their discussions and they have heard from others in the class, provide the groups with time to finish their discussions addressing how other groups agreed or disagreed with them and allow them time to modify their responses in their groups.

By using these strategies you will not only build your students’ critical thinking skills and language skills but you will also increase your student engagement during your lesson which should equate to increased learning during class.

References

Hassinger-Das, B., Toub, T. S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2017). A matter of principle: Applying language science to the classroom and beyond. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 3(1), 5-18. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1037/tps0000085

Krkovic, K., Wüstenberg, S., & Greiff, S. (2016). Assessing collaborative behavior in students: An experiment-based assessment approach. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 32(1), 52-60. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1027/1015-5759/a000329

Lin, T., Jadallah, M., Anderson, R. C., Baker, A. R., Nguyen-Jahiel, K., Kim, I., . . . Wu, X. (2015). Less is more: Teachers’ influence during peer collaboration. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(2), 609-629. doi:http://dx.doi.org.access.library.eou.edu/10.1037/a0037758