Short Unelaborated Responses
Ms. A's concern:
Students give short one- or two-word answers...
"When I call on my EL students individually, they often give short one- or two-word answers. I want to involve them in the class discussion, but I think they lack confidence in their oral language skills. I wish I had a way to get them to use academic language in class."
Why is this happening?
This teacher is correct. Calling on individual students to explain a concept or answer a question puts that student on the spot to have the knowledge and the language necessary to express their thoughts. Many students- not just ELs- get nervous when called on in class.
Addressing Ms. A's concern:
How might teachers workshop this dilemma?
Ms. A describes the scenario in more detail to her colleagues:
This is a lesson from a unit on ancient Egypt. We watched a video on the architecture of the pyramids and then read about the phenomenal feat of building the pyramids. I asked questions based on “who, what when, why and how. Here are some of the questions I asked the group:
- What was the biggest challenge in building the pyramid?
- Why did the pharaohs want to build the pyramids?
- Who did all the hard work of building the pyramids?
Mostly I got simple one- or two-word answers, even to the ‘why’ question. Cesar or Mariana, my EL students, did not raise their hands and I did not call on them. They both seem shy whenever I call on them. I always give them a chance to volunteer and I stop by and ask them questions individually during seatwork, so I know they are learning. I feel like discussion is important to social studies learning but I just can’t get it off the ground. There must be a better way to get my students talking about the lesson!
Ideas offered by colleagues:
Provide Visual Clues
In my classroom, I project the text as we read and highlight key ideas that I am going to question them about. So, like the question about why the pharaohs wanted the pyramids built, I know the answer to that question is in several places. When I start the questioning, I point out that there are some key ideas highlighted in yellow that might help them answer the questions.
Give Choices
I like to give students choices of responses and then ask for a show of hands to vote. When you ask, “Who did all the hard work?” I would write three choices, then tell them they are going to vote, but after that, I am going to ask people to tell me why they think their choice is correct. This makes the students go back to the text to find evidence.
Provide Language Support
I like to emphasize the academic language they need to answer the questions. I often write a sentence starter on the board and ask them to use that to answer the question. For example, for the question, “what was the biggest challenge in building the pyramids?” I would write, “The biggest challenge in building the pyramids was _______ because ____________. Adding “because” makes them use evidence to support their answers.
Which teacher move would you try?
A Coach's Comments:
“These are all great ideas. I can see how each idea scaffolds students’ responses. The text highlighting definitely provides visual cues for using the academic language of the text. Likewise, the idea of sentence starters sets up the students to form an argument and use the language. The idea of giving choices and polling the students makes sure that everyone thinks about the question and finds evidence to support their responses. I really like all these ideas. I see how they get away from the pressure of calling on students one by one.
Here is something else to think about. Students do not always have to answer questions directly to the teacher. Structured Peer Discussion is a powerful tool for getting your students to talk about the content. Research shows that using heterogeneous groups or pairing ELs with students more fluent in English provides peer support and takes the pressure off of ELs to speak aloud in class. Let’s look at how this works.”
Learn more about
Structured Peer Discussion.
Download Structured Peer Discussion Guide.