Teacher Awareness Series I: Article Four – Less Teacher Talk

by Jean Schedler, Ph.D. Educational Consultant

Welcome to the fourth of five articles focusing on what we as classroom teachers/clinicians can do to increase our awareness of our students’ learning profiles.

If you are just now joining us in the series, it will be critical for you to read the preceding three articles (and practice the suggested techniques) if you are to derive benefit from this article.

So far in the series we have:

1)   practiced establishing eye contact with our students;

2)   practiced having the students repeat or summarize their understanding of directions or major points of a lesson; and

3)   examined our own teacher language of instruction.

In the previous article you were challenged to actually identify when students became “confused” or “lost”during oral teacher talk. It is important that you/the teacher have taken the time to answer last weeks challenge question.

The challenge question was “do your students understand and process what you/the teacher is saying? And if not – why not?”

You/the teacher were to use student eye contact and student repeating and/or summarizing to assist you with answering this question.

If you have been following this series and putting into practice the weekly exercises, you will be ready for the next recommendation.

This week’s recommendation is to increase the quality of teacher language of instruction and reduce the quantity of teacher talk. In other words – less teacher talk!

To increase the quality of teacher language of instruction will require you/the teacher to be clear and concise. To reduce the quantity of teacher talk will require you to stop talking once you have given the directions or explained your major point. Do not repeat yourself, do not talk in run on sentences, do not keep up a constant stream of talking.

If your students appear confused or ask you to repeat the directions, take the time to examine the why!

Had the eye contact between teacher and student(s) not been in place? Have the students not bothered to pay attention because they know you will constantly repeat yourself? Was the information or directions “clear” – but not concise?

In other words – was it too large a chunk of information for the student to process all at once. We teachers love to talk – and love to hear ourselves talk! And I am as guilty of this as the next person.

It was with great difficulty that I learned to “talk less” and to increase the quality when I taught. In order for me to “teach” – my students must be “learning”. If the learning is not taking place – I am NOT teaching. I may be “talking” – I may be “delivering content” – but I am NOT teaching, if my students are not learning.

My suggestion is to identify a colleague you respect and discuss this article. Brainstorm what “talking less” might look like. If possible, take turns observing each other and make “gentle recommendations”. This is a work in progress! We all have much to learn from each other.

To learn more about Dr Schedler’s September 2009 Workshops and Trainings in Reading Intervention materials (Sonday System) contact Read Auckland at info@readauckland.co.nz or call 09-529 1381.