Kent Buckley-Ess

DOI: https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch22   

ABSTRACT

English learners of all ages and proficiencies can improve their ability to communicate by systematically engaging in classroom discourse. In classroom contexts, discourse refers to how language is used by teachers and students for daily communication and how students share ideas during lesson activities. To help students improve their communication skills, effective teachers create discourse opportunities. They simulate authentic discourse by carefully planning and implementing interactive lessons that require receptive skills (listening, reading) and productive skills (speaking, writing). In this chapter, you will learn about the need for and powerful role of purposefully planned interactive lessons for strengthening communication through classroom discourse. You will learn about establishing lesson objectives based on student interests and engagement, cultural aspects, and physical space. You will also learn about incorporating communicative competencies (e.g., listening actively, asking questions, using nonverbal cues) within classroom discourse for students to further develop their ability to communicate. 

Keywords: classroom discourse, discourse opportunities, communication skills, communicative competencies, lesson objectives, interactive lessons

How to cite this chapter: 

Buckley-Ess, K. (2023). Strengthening Communication Through Classroom Discourse. In V. Canese & S. Spezzini (Eds.), Teaching English in Global Contexts, Language, Learners and Learning (pp. 267-277). Editorial Facultad de Filosofía, UNA. https://doi.org/10.47133/tegc_ch22

INTRODUCTION

The goal of English programs is for language learners to improve their ability to listen, speak, read, and write. To reach that goal, teachers must plan engaging activities that provide students with opportunities to process and use English starting at their level of proficiency and extending beyond. By developing and implementing interactive lessons, teachers create opportunities for classroom discourse. In the classroom context, discourse refers to the language used by teachers and students to communicate with one another (Cazden, 2001). Classroom discourse can also be students sharing ideas about a given topic by interacting with each other in a conversation. Both types of discourse can serve to strengthen students’ abilities for communication thus leading to higher levels of comprehension and speaking. 

When planning communicative lessons, arrange student seating to facilitate discourse and include pair and group activities, active listening activities, and non-linguistic communicative components. Provide multiple opportunities for language learners to improve their speaking abilities by incorporating interactive language learning activities thus allowing them to interact frequently with each other in authentic discourse (Omar et al., 2020). Soon, your students will be looking forward to these activities, and you will notice positive impacts from these activities on student engagement and language learning.  

BACKGROUND

This section examines the role of discourse in two different approaches to language instruction: competence-based and communicative-based. It also examines how classroom discourse can strengthen communication.

In a competence-based approach, language instruction focuses on students learning and understanding language components such as vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Teachers spend instructional time explaining and reviewing structures, rules, and the formation of consistent patterns. Students spend time working on patterned phrases, grammar rules, dialogues, and other activities. Little or no attention is given to establishing discourse opportunities or developing communication skills.

In a communicative-based approach, language instruction includes aspects beyond those in a competence-based approach (Richards & Rodgers, 2001). These additional aspects support students for being able to communicate with others in a variety of discourse settings by using both verbal and non-verbal strategies. Because competence-based approaches often did not lead learners to successfully using the target language in real-life discourse, Canale and Swain (1980) coined the term communicative competence. Their theory, together with subsequent iterations by other researchers, underlies communicative-based models for language teaching. A model used widely in Canada (Jeung, 2018) is as follows:

• linguistic competence—creating utterances that are grammatically correct,

• sociolinguistic competence—creating utterances that are socio-linguistically appropriate,

• discourse competence—producing utterances that are coherent and cohesive, and

• strategic competence—solving communicative problems as needed.

In addition to linguistic components, communicative instruction includes activities to develop students’ sociolinguistic abilities for interacting with different people in different settings, their discourse abilities for forming comprehensible oral and written communication, and their strategic abilities for using verbal and non-verbal skills when such techniques are needed to solve communication problems. Hence, a communicative-based approach can lead learners to using language in a way that a competence-based approach cannot accomplish (Walsh & Li, 2013).

These communicative competencies are essential to support the purpose of communication such as for persuading, explaining, and narrating. When using a communicative-based approach in your classroom, provide authentic discourse opportunities for students to interact with each other while using the target language. By engaging in different types of classroom discourse, they expand and strengthen their communication skills.

MAJOR DIMENSIONS

To strengthen your students’ communicative skills through discourse-based lessons and to maximize the effectiveness of these lessons, incorporate Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky, 1986) and follow a five-step model (Staehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017).

Zone of Proximal Development

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was proposed by Vygotsky (1986) to explain how learners, as they use and are exposed to a target language, develop language abilities and conceptual understandings. ZPD represents the relationship between what learners can do with support and then what they can do independently, as shown in Figure 1. 

Figure 1

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development

Note. Blacktc, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Zone_of_proximal_development_Label-free.svg. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Figure 1 illustrates the ZPD (Vygotsky, 1986) as three concentric circles. The outer circle represents what learners cannot do. The middle circle represents what learners can do with guidance, support, and scaffolding provided by others. As such, this circle comprises the ZPD through which the learners, by building on what they know, can develop new knowledge and skills through scaffolding, active learning, and engagement. The inner circle represents what learners can do unaided after being supported. Together, these three circles show how learners, through ZPD, move from the outer circle to the inner circle.

When designing your communicative lessons, provide discourse opportunities for students to develop concepts and use English to communicate. Start at your students’ English proficiency level and, by providing appropriate ZPD scaffolding, guide them to go beyond this level. Support your students “to work at appropriate age and language proficiency levels through their second language” (Collier & Thomas, 2012, p. 158). Design lessons in a socio-culturally supportive environment with ZPD supports such as collaborative peer teaching and other learning opportunities such as connections between instructional content and the students’ lives. 

Five-Step Planning Model

To help students strengthen their communicative skills through classroom discourse, use a five-step planning model with several components for meaningful, interactive lessons (Staehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017). Enhance your students’ ability to communicate in their new language by designing your lessons with these five steps:

1. Know Your English Language Learners. Consider your students’ interests, strengths, home language, and English proficiency levels. Focus lessons on your students. Create a system to collect student data (e.g., checklists, individual notecards, online tools) and keep these records updated.

2. Analyze the Language Demands of the Lesson. In the course syllabus or teacher guide, identify the lesson’s main language objective (e.g., grammatical structure, listening, or vocabulary development). When planning your lessons, keep this objective in mind.

3. Plan Your Lesson. Develop communicative activities for reviewing, introducing, and reinforcing the lesson objective. Arrange classroom space to facilitate discourse opportunities for students to interact with each other (e.g., pairs, teams, table groups).

4. Select and Develop Appropriate Materials. Develop scaffolds at different language levels for students to participate in communicative activities. Identify lesson aspects that might be challenging (e.g., vocabulary, activity procedures). Find connections with the students’ lives. Support student understanding and participation by using visuals and sentence frames. Make plans for modeling language structures and procedural processes to prepare students for each activity.

5. Teach by Adapting Scaffolds and Materials as Needed. During each activity, circulate among students and take notes about participation, strengths, and misunderstandings. If needed, modify these activities, or include additional scaffolds to support students with participating. Use this information to inform plans for upcoming lessons. (Staehr Fenner & Snyder, 2017).

When you follow these five steps, your lessons will have engaging communicative activities and meaningful discourse opportunities needed by students at all ages and language levels. Even students at a beginning language level must learn how to communicate at the level of their language development and make their needs and interests understood (Díaz-Rico, 2012).

PEDAGOGICAL APPLICATIONS

In this section, the five-step model described above is used for planning a communicative lesson. This purposefully planned interactive lesson includes ZPD scaffolding and offers discourse opportunities so that the English learners in a specific class can strengthen their communication skills. Bulleted examples are provided for each step.

1. Know Your English Language Learners

• 27 students: from 11 to 14 years of age

• English proficiency levels: from high beginner to low intermediate

• Student interests: music, video games, sports, fashion

2. Analyze the Language Demands of the Lesson

• Lesson standard: Introducing irregular comparative and superlative adjectives 

• Lesson objective: Reviewing adjectives, comparing objects, and using comparative and superlative adjectives 

3. Plan and Design Your Lesson

• Reviewing (setting the scene for students to engage in classroom discourse)

• Show students a familiar object (e.g., pencil, backpack). Students describe the object.

• Write student-generated responses (adjectives, phrases, sentences) on a chart.

• Underline adjectives, and circle nouns (“green pencil”, “This is a large backpack”). 

• Have students discuss what they know about adjective and noun relationships.

• Review the purpose and structure of adjective phrases.

Modeling (offering ZPD-type support to prepare all students for engaging in discourse)

• Show three objects of the same item but with different characteristics (e.g., red hat, big hat, long hat).

• Place three adjective cards (“good,” “better,” “best”) on the board.

• While looking at each of these three objects, model your own thinking process for students by doing a Think-Aloud. In this Think-Aloud, express your inner thinking aloud, thereby demonstrating to students how you think about the situation and come up with a rationale for matching each object with a selected adjective card (Victoria State Government, 2018). Your oral Think-Aloud might be as follows:

a. I like the red hat because I like baseball. It is good.

b. The very big hat is better because it has many colors, and people like it.

c. I think the long hat is best because it keeps me warm.

• Point to each object and summarize as follows: 

a. This one is a good hat.

b. This one is a better hat.

c. This one is the best hat.

Demonstrating and Practicing (providing ZPD scaffolds to initiate student discourse)

• Ask students to share what they noticed during your Think-Aloud.

• Ask other students if they agree or disagree. If needed, provide oral and visual scaffolds by pointing to the appropriate card and modeling an oral response:

a. This hat is OK. It’s a good hat.

b. I put the big hat here. It has a lot of colors. It’s a better hat.

c. I really like to wear the long hat in winter. It’s the best hat for me.

• Model and practice appropriate ways for students to agree or disagree with others (e.g., raising hands, thumbs up/thumbs down, nodding head or shaking head).

• Provide additional models and scaffolds for the more advanced students: 

a. The _______ hat is ________ than the ________ one because __________.

b. I agree/disagree with ___(name)___ about the __________ hat. 

I think it’s better/not better than the ________ one because_______.

c. Tell me why you think _________ is better than _____________.

• Review the above process for using comparative and superlative adjectives to describe objects.

Engaging (creating opportunities with ZPD support to extend student discourse)

• Show another set of three objects (e.g., different markers). 

• Use the same adjective cards (“good,” “better,” “best”).

• Place students in pairs.

• Based on the modeling examples provided above, provide scaffolding for student pairs (as needed) and model a discussion and decision-making process. 

• Ask a student to help you model discussing and making decisions for the entire class. Together with this student, act out being a student pair and demonstrate how to discuss the three objects and decide which object to match with each adjective. 

• Encourage students to follow this discussion and decision-making process when working with their partner.

• Provide a signal for student pairs to start discussing the three objects with the goal of deciding which adjective best describes each object. 

Assessing (supporting students to use and improve discourse skills in pairs)

• To support discourse, provide additional visual cards with words, phrases, or sentence frames to support students in giving responses.

• Circulate among the student pairs as they discuss the objects.

• Observe and take notes about how well students understand this discussion process and the content material as well as their language use, communication skills, and any possible confusion.

• Encourage and support participation based on students’ language proficiency levels.

• In subsequent rounds, create new student pairs and provide other sets of objects. 

Sharing (encouraging students to engage in discourse with the whole class)

• Invite several student pairs to share their classification and thought processes. Ask the other students to show their agreement or disagreement.

• Provide visuals and sentence frames to support student sharing, and model gestures.

• Before ending the lesson, ask students to describe the day’s activity as “good,” “better,” or “best.” Model an appropriate response such as the following: Today’s class was “better” because ____________.

• Provide scaffolds as needed.

4. Select and Develop Appropriate Materials

• Develop visual and oral scaffolds to support students’ understanding of the content material and encourage them to actively use these materials.

• Select several sets of three objects (i.e., same object but different characteristics).

• Create several sets of adjective cards with “good,” “better,” and “best.” 

• Prepare charts with sentence frames to scaffold students’ responses:

a. This (object) is (good, better, best).

b. I think this (object) is (good, better, best) because __________.

c. I agree with (name).  This is a/the (good, better, best) (object).

5. Teach by Using Materials and by Adapting Scaffolds (i.e., ZPD) 

• Listen to the interactions within student pairs. Take written notes, support students’ communication skills, and provide scaffolds, as needed.

• Focus on student participation in these communication tasks and their engagement in discourse opportunities. Refrain from correcting student errors. 

• Consider other comparative and superlative adjectives (e.g., “bad/worse/worst,” “little/less/least,”) for further engaging students in discussions, conversations, and other discourse opportunities.

• Based on the notes you took while circulating among groups, identify future teaching points and plan lessons with direct instruction, communicative activities, and extended discourse opportunities.

In this chapter, you learned how classroom discourse can strengthen students’ communication skills. You learned that such discourse is built upon well-planned communicative lessons and that, when planning these lessons, you need to consider the content to be taught and materials to be scaffolded. You also learned to consider physical space and sufficient time for students’ oral language engagement and your informal assessment. Finally, you learned to include five steps in your interactive lessons to ensure opportunities for classroom discourse so that your students can meet content and language objectives and, in turn, strengthen their communication skills.

Communication is a social, dynamic, and complex component of language instruction based on classroom discourse that you can support by doing the following:

• Establish communication and participation as the goal without focusing on perfection during communicative activities.

• When planning each lesson, include engaging and interactive communicative activities.

• Include students’ interests in classroom communicative activities.

• Set up your classroom so that students have easy access for communicating daily with other students and with the teacher.

• Scaffold communicative activities to meet the strengths and needs of students’ English proficiency levels.

• Assess students’ progress and misunderstandings during communicative activities but provide correction and instruction in future lessons.

Based on this chapter, respond to the following prompts:

1. Identify several topics of potential interest to your future students. Explain how you will use these topics to engage students in communicative activities and classroom discourse.

2. Name and describe several different teaching techniques to engage students (especially those who are beginners or are very shy) in communicative activities and classroom discourse. 

3. Explain how the ZPD and scaffolding can support students for participating in communicative activities and developing their classroom discourse skills.

4. List several ways to use one or more activities for assessing students’ communicative skills. Explain how these activities can produce data to guide you when reinforcing or re-teaching these skills in future lessons.

To practice what you have learned in this chapter, do the following:

1. Look at previous lesson plans. Design and integrate communicative activities that will strengthen your students’ language abilities for engaging in classroom discourse.

2. Design a data collection sheet to use during communicative activities for tracking student participation, interaction, language use, and language confusion. Use data to develop re-teaching points for future lessons.

To expand your knowledge about discourse and communication, visit these websites:

• Communicative Competence, Learn Alberta (Canada). https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/eslapb/understanding_the_acquisition_language_in_stages_working_towards.html 

• Definitions. https://www.supersummary.com/discourse-in-literature-definition-examples/  

• Examples of Discourse. https://www.thoughtco.com/discourse-language-term-1690464  

• Oral Language Activities, New Zealand Ministry of Education. https://esolonline.tki.org.nz/ESOL-Online/Planning-for-my-students-needs/Resources-for-planning/ESOL-teaching-strategies/Oral-Language 

• Sample Lesson Plans, Ezoic Premium Publisher. https://games4esl.com/lesson-plans/  

• Teaching Conversation Protocols, Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-your-students-conversation-allen-mendler 

• Think Aloud and Other Metacognitive Strategies, Inclusive Schools Network. https://inclusiveschools.org/metacognitive-strategies/ 

Aspects related to discourse and communication are addressed in other chapters of this book:

Chapter 10 Building Language Awareness by H. Lalwani

Chapter 13 Designing Learner-Centered Classrooms to Promote Active Learning by H. Kaiser

Chapter 15 Exploring Meaning Through Translanguaging Practices by K. Liu and J. Choi

Chapter 16 Incorporating Interjections to Facilitate Conversational Flow by A. Rodomanchenko

Chapter 20 Creating an ELT Classroom Community by B. Crosbie and D. Carter

Chapter 21 Connecting Student Interaction With Classroom Management by G. Mendoza

Chapter 25 Preparing to Teach Through Effective Lesson Planning by H. Lalwani

Chapter 33 Current Approaches in English Language Teaching by N. Dantaz

Chapter 38 A Sociocultural Approach to Teaching Grammar by C. Davies, J. Prado, and J. Austin

Chapter 39 Strategies to Teach Listening by E. Nuñez

Chapter 40 Strategies to Teach Speaking by S. Spezzini

Chapter 43 Strategies to Teach Integrated Skills by L. Fuller 

Canale, M., & Swain, M. (1980). Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Applied Linguistics, 1(1), 1-47.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/applin/I.1.1 

Cazden, C. B.  (2001). Classroom discourse: The language of teaching and learning (2nd ed.). Heinemann.

Collier, V., & Thomas, W. (2012). What really works for English language learners: Research based practices for principals. In G. Theoharis & J. Brooks (Eds.), What every principal needs to know to create equitable and excellent schools (pp. 155-173). Teachers College. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5d854ac170e64a71d1de71d3/t/5d9dec6cd0d7fe7464732604/1570630785587/vpcwptchapter-in-theoharis-book_edit-1.pdf

Díaz-Rico. L. T. (2012). Strategies for teaching English learners (3rd ed.). Allyn & Bacon. 

Jeong, K. O. (2018). Developing EFL learners’ communicative competence through multimedia-assisted language learning. Journal of Theoretical & Applied Information Technology, 96(5), 1367-1376. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Sub-categories-of-Communicative-Competence_fig1_324158629 

Omar, S. F., Nawi, H. S. A., Shahdan, T. S. T., Mee, R. W. M., Pek, L. S., & Yob, F. S. C. (2020). Interactive language learning activities for learners’ communicative ability (EJ1274774). International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 9(4), 1010-1016. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v9i4.20605 

Richards, J. C., & Rodgers, T. S. (2001). Approaches and methods in language teaching. Cambridge University Press.

Staehr Fenner, D., & Snyder, S. (2017). Unlocking English learners’ potential: Strategies for making content accessible. Corwin. 

Victoria State Government. (2018, August 29). Modeling through think alouds. Education and Training: Literacy Teaching Toolkit. https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/discipline/english/literacy/speakinglistening/Pages/teachingpracmodelling.aspx

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. MIT Press.

Walsh, S., & Li., L. (2013). Conversations as space for learning. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 247-266. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12005.

Kent Buckley-Ess is a retired classroom, bilingual, and ESOL teacher as well a teacher trainer, mentor, and coach. Kent has worked with language learners in Paraguay, the Caribbean, Europe, and several school districts in the United States. His main interest is empowering students and teachers as advocates for purposeful and engaging instructional practices to foster understanding and communication at all levels from beginning to advanced, regardless of age, physical space, or materials. Kent focuses on creating opportunities for meaningful communication and discourse to maximize students’ interest and participation as they develop their language skills.

Email for correspondence regarding this chapter: Kent.Buckley.Ess@gmail.com

Cover Photo by CDC on Unsplash