Instructional Conversations

1
Instructional Conversations

• An Effective Tool for Teaching English Language
  Learners

Maryland TESOL 29th Annual Conference November 7,
2009 Northwestern High School, Hyattsville,
Maryland
2
Robin ScarcellaProgram in Academic English and
ESLUniversity of California - Irvine
rcscarce_at_uci.edu
3
Agenda

• Instructional conversations
• How not to engage students in conversations
• Critical features
• Lesson cycles
• Sentence stems

4
What are Instructional Conversations?

• Instructional conversations always entail
  extended dialogue between teachers and students
  and between classmates about topics and tasks
  that are relevant to students and have
  educational value

• They always develop students language and
  complex thinking skills.

5
Instructional Conversations

• Discussion-based lessons carried out with the
  assistance of more competent others who help
  students arrive at a deeper understanding of the
  academic content. Instructional conversations
  provide opportunities for students to use
  language in ways that promote analysis,
  reflection, and critical thinking.

6
What do instructional conversations do?

• Allow students to work together as a class, in
  small groups, or even in pairs to maximize their
  own language learning as well as that of others.

7
These classroom interactions create
opportunities for students conceptual and
linguistic development by making connections
between academic content, students prior
knowledge and cultural experiences.
The interactions have to be VERY carefully
structured to teach language. Language
development will necessarily emerge through
unstructured conversations.
8
Lets start with how not to engage students in
conversations.

• Begin by ignoring language objectives. Dont
  provide a comprehensive, coordinated plan for
  using instructional conversations to help
  students reach specific language objectives,
  improve specific skills, and/or gain specific
  types of knowledge.

9
A Big Concern Language Objectives
10

• Helpful
  Necessary
• Include language objectives
• Provide language instruction
• Provide language exposure
• Provide sufficient
• practice
• Provide feedback
• Engage students

11
How not to engage students in conversations

• Make sure learners have daily prolonged
  unstructured conversations in English and no
  instruction. Never teach students the English
  language skills and features that they need to
  participate in conversations.

12
How not to engage students in conversations

• Dont provide direct, explicit instruction of
  language embedded in content that students can
  use in their conversations.
• Dont provide feedback.
• Dont worry about struggling learners. Assume
  they will catch up. Dont provide
• them with any special scaffolding.

13
Scaffolding

• Scaffolding is a means by which students receive
  support in various forms from their teachers in
  an effort to promote the development of specific
  language skills and features as well as
  understanding.
• Scaffolding eventually results in independence
  through the careful reduction of support as
  students make progress.

14
Critical Features
15
Critical Feature 1

• Teachers and Students-- Interacting Together to
  Achieve Learning

16
Joint Production

• Experts and novices work together on a common
  goal.

This increases the amount of exposure to English
learners receive. It also increases their
opportunities to use language.
17
Critical Feature 2

• Teachers-- Scaffolding the Students Development
  of English

18
Critical Feature 3

• Teachers-- Connecting Language Use to Students
  Lives
• And Experiences,
• When appropriate.

19
Critical Feature 4

• Teachers-- Fostering Complex Thinking

20
Higher-Level Thinking

• Teachers challenging students to think critically
  and develop complex thought (application,
  analysis, synthesis, evaluation)

21
Critical Feature 5

• Teachers and Students --Participating in Extended
  Conversation

22
Critical Feature 6

• Students -- Having Many Opportunities to Respond

23
Critical Feature 7

• Teachers-- Providing Feedback on Language Use

24
Instructional Conversations

• To participate in an instructional
  conversation, students need to know
• a lot of English.
• Mere exposure to English in the course of
  conversation does not guarantee the students
  acquisition of English.

25
Lesson Cycle or Sequence
Instructional conversations in teaching
learners generally entail a series of activities
or a lesson cycle or sequence leading up to a
final extended conversation.
26
Step 1 Building Interest

• Teachers introduce the conversational task and
  build interest in it.

27


Step 2 Teaching Language

• Teachers identify and teach 3-4 features of the
  language that the students need to use in
  conversation but do not know or have difficulty
  using.

28
Fixed Expressions

• Equivalent to
• Different from
• Similar to

29
Grammar
30
Three Syllable or More Adjectives

• Put 'more/most in front
• expensive ----- more expensive
• expensive ---- most expensive

31
One Syllable Adjectives

• Add 'er / est
• short -----shorter
• shorter-----shortest

32

Step 3 Model and Practice

• Give students multiple opportunities to hear
  you use language.

33

Step 3 Practice -- Sentence Strips
Teachers can give students sentence strips to use
when modeling and practicing comparison
constructions.

• ______ and ______are similar.
• Each (is / has) ___________.
• Like __________, _____________ also has
  _________.
• A significant similarity between the two is
  ____________.

Source Marsha Zandi, UCSD Teacher Professional
Development
34
Sentence Strips

• Although they share many similarities,
  ____________ differs from ____________ because
  ________________.
• Unlike _______, _______ (is/has)
  _________________.
• One important difference between the two is
  __________.
• Perhaps, the most significant difference is
  _______________ because __________________.

Source Marsha Zandi, UCSD Teacher Professional
Development
35
Step 3 Practice -- Graphic Organizers

• Teachers tell students to complete charts with
  partners, e.g., a Venn Diagram Chart comparing
  two movies or TV shows.

36
Step 3 More Practice -- Highly Scaffolded
Instructional Conversation

• First
• - Partner A begins by asking questions.
• - Partner B answers the questions.
• Second
• Partner B asks the questions and Partner A
  answers the questions.

37
Step 4 Feedback

• Instructional Interaction Feedback
• The teacher explicitly explains and
• models language features while students are
  engaged
• The teacher guides students while they
• practice the features and, if needed,
  provides
• instructional feedback
• The teacher provides opportunities for
• students to use the features themselves
• and reinforces student correct responses

38
Step 5 The Instructional Conversation

• The teacher asks students to use language
  features in an extended conversation, e.g., to
  compare two movies or TV shows and recommend one
  to their classmates.
• As the students discuss the movies with
  classmates, the teacher scaffolds language use
  and asks probing questions.

39
Each One, Teach One

• Come up with 4 behaviors (or actions) that
  teachers could use to engage students in
  instructional conversations that improve their
  students English.

Example The teacher groups students, carefully
assigning speaking roles to each student to
ensure all students talk.
40
Lets look at the activities that Roland Tharp
and Ronald Gallimore (1989) discuss.
Did you identify any of these actions
or behaviors?
41
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher creates a challenging but
  non-threatening atmosphere. The teacher creates
  an atmosphere that challenges students and allows
  them to understand and discuss the meaning of the
  text.
• The teacher responds to student contributions.
  While having an initial plan and maintaining the
  focus and coherence of discussions about reading
  passages, the teacher is also responsive to
  students' statements.
•  

42
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher promotes discussion. Much of the
  discussion centers on questions and answers for
  which there might be more than one correct
  answer.
• The teacher encourages students to build on
  others comments. The discussion is characterized
  by multiple, interactive, connected utterances
  succeeding utterances build upon and extend
  previous ones.

43
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher encourages general participation
  among students. The teacher does not hold
  exclusive right to determine who talks, and
  students are encouraged to volunteer or otherwise
  influence the selection of speaking turns.

44
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher selects a theme or idea to serve as a
  stating point to focus the discussion. The
  teacher has a general plan for how the theme will
  unfold and "chunks" the text (divides it into
  parts) to permit optimal exploration of the theme.

Lots of preparation is required!
45
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher either "hooks into" or provides
  students with pertinent background knowledge and
  relevant information necessary for understanding
  the text. Background knowledge and information
  are then woven into the discussion that follows.

46
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher provides direct teaching of language
  features, skills or concepts and scaffolds their
  use in conversation.
• The teacher prepares students to participate
  in the conversation.

47
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• Whenever appropriate, the teacher promotes the
  use of more complex language and expression. The
  teacher elicits more extended student
  contributions by using a variety of elicitation
  techniques a. invitations to expand (Tell me
  more about_____, What do you mean by____?), b.
  restatements (In other words,______), and c.
  pauses, giving students time to respond.

48
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher promotes students' use of text,
  pictures, and reasoning to support an argument or
  position. The teacher asks students to express
  their opinions, beliefs and explanations.
• How do you know that?
• What makes you think that?

49
Teacher Actions/Behaviors

• The teacher increases the effectiveness of
  instructional conversations by designing and
  delivering instruction that provides

• extra support to initially practice new
• language correctly
• extra opportunities to practice new
• language to a fluent level.

50
The Role of the Teachers in Final Instructional
Conversation Stage

• Directive
• talking at
• telling how and why
• giving solutions
• telling students what to say

• Facilitator/Learning Manager
• talking with
• asking how and why
• helping students craft solutions
• helping students express themselves in English

51
Teacher Abilities
Ability to use appropriate
questioning techniques
Ability to group effectively
Ability to scaffold language development
Ability to maintain an appropriate sense of
timing and pacing
Ability to multi-task
Ability to engage all students in meaningful
interaction enhancing their learning
52
A Critical Consideration

• Classroom Organization/Management

53
Grouping Students

• Individual
• Group
• Partner
• Teacher-student
• Student-student
• Student-teacher/
• other students

54

Participatory Structures
Classmates and Teacher
Pairs
Groups of Students
Student
55
Challenges to Using Instructional Conversations
In Language Teaching
56
Challenge 1 We tend to acquire the language of
those with whom we associate.
57
Practice Makes Permanent!
If you practice a feature of language
incorrectly, you can learn it incorrectly!
58
How Much Practice is Needed?
Number of correct repetitions in a row of a new
word needed to automatize the word -
NICHD
(R. Lyon, 1997)
59
Challenge 2 Students often use informal, basic
forms of English in all contexts--even when
formal, more complex language is required.
60
Challenge 3 Students who are just beginning to
acquire English will have difficulty
participating in conversations.
61
Challenge 4 Some students may be shy and not
want to talk, while others might want to grab the
floor and dominate the conversation.
62
Challenge 5 In large classrooms, noise from
conversation groups may prevent students from
hearing one another.
63
Challenge 6 Teachers may not know how to teach
language, model it, and provide sufficient
opportunities for students to practice it.
64
Using Questions Effectively

• Using wait time
• Rephrasing questions
• Using a sequence of questions
• Using leveled questions, properly sequenced

65
Encouraging Student Response
Students rates of developing fluency and
accuracy are proportional to the rate at which
they respond correctly. Giving students more
opportunities to respond is a way to increase
their rates of learning.
Teachers can increase student opportunities to
respond by

• Using a rapid pacing of instruction
• Allowing choral and multiple responses

Adapted from David Howe 2006
66
Individual Responses in Whole Class Discussions
Teachers can maximize student engagement by

• not calling on students with their
• hands raised

• asking a question and then calling on
• all students

• calling on low performers more often

Adapted from David Howe 2006
67

Making Connections

• Partner Talk
• Describe how teachers can use instructional
  conversations to teach specific features of
  language.
• Choose one of the following
• Any five fixed expressions (such as high poverty
  rate)
• Past tense verb endings (verb ed)
• Conditional clauses (with if)
• Explanations with the word because

68
Instructional Activities

• Used in instructional conversations

69
Close Reading

• Close-Reading Questions
• What is the author trying to say here?
• What do you think the author wants us to know?
• What is the author talking about?
• So what does the author mean right here?

• Does that make sense with what the author told us
  before?
• How does that fit in with what the author told
  us?
• But does the author tell us why?
• Why do you think the author tells us that now?

From Carol Jago, 2005.
70
Converting Informal English into Formal English.
Teachers can ask students to convert informal
English into formal English with a partner
before asking students to discuss the
characteristics of informal and formal language
in small group conversations.
71
(No Transcript)
72
Text Analysis

• Teachers can ask students to analyze text and
• discuss the use of specific language features.

73
Steps in Using Text Analysis

• Reading Comprehension
• Stage 1 Read aloud a short passage to students
  so that they hear the pronunciation.
• Stage 2 Read the passage aloud to students and
  discuss the meaning of the short passage.

• Language Analysis
• Stage 3 Take apart the language in the passage
  clause by clause. Discuss the language in each
  clause. This is language analysis.
• Stage 4 Read the passage aloud to students once
  more to deepen their critical understanding of
  the passage.
• Stage 5 Ask students to discuss the use of
  specific language features.

74
Step 3 The Most Difficult Part (Language
Analysis)

• Take complex sentences apart. Divide them into
  simple sentences.

I know the man that is on the corner. I know the
man. He is on the corner.
75
Language Analysis (cont.)

• Underline the pronouns and circle the nouns the
  pronouns refer to.
• Underline the descriptive adjectives.

• Circle the adverbs of frequency (never, almost,
  sometimes)
• Underline the prepositional phrases.
• Circle the logical connectors.

76
Conversational Strategies
Request information
Keep the conversation going
RespondTo Ideas Think While SpeakingCommunicate
When Things Dont Make Sense
Guess judiciously
Use visuals
Rely on others for help
Use pause fillers
Ask questions request clarification
77
Structured oral language instruction makes a
difference!
78
For Discussion

• With a partner or in small groups, discuss these
  questions
• From your own experience, which oral activities
  are the most effective? Share your favorites.
• Which activities might be helpful in motivating
  students to use new language in their
  interactions?

79
Questions

• Why do conversations so often fail?
• Should you always pair more proficient English
  speakers with less proficient English speakers?
• How can you avoid embarrassing learners who have
  difficulty conveying themselves orally?

80
Sentence Stems

• Vocabulary
• In creating a sentence stem, the teacher normally
  provides the beginning of a sentence. The
  sentence starter should be carefully constructed
  so the students show their level of knowledge of
  a word by the way in which they complete it.
• Sample stems include
• Dad got mad when I upset the paints because ...
• When he leaned back in his chair...
• My mom will panic if...

Adapted from Vocabulary Instruction for English
Language Learners Educator's Voice - April 21,
2008  by Katie Kurjakovic?United Federation of
Teachers, New York City.
81
Sentence Stems

• Sentence starters can also be used to teach
  grammar.
• Modal Auxiliaries
• I may
• I should
• I must
• I might not
• I could not
• If sentences
• If I were the president/teacher/principal, I
  would
• If I had one million dollars, I would

82
Sentence Stems
83
Sentence Stems
84
(No Transcript)
85
Sentence Stems

• Adapted from Content-Area Conversations by
  Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey and Carol Rothenberg.
  LAS Links http//www.ascd.org/publications/books/
  108035/chapters/Procedures_for_Classroom_Talk.aspx
  
• See also Zwiers, J. (2008). Building academic
  language Essential practices for content
  classrooms. San Francisco Jossey-Bass.