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Speaking & Listening Cross-Content Practices K-5
Speaking & Listening Cross-Content Practices K-5
While there are many specific and appropriate practices to promote speaking and listening in the classroom, this handbook contains descriptions and protocols for the following cross-content practices: active listening, Accountable Talk®, and collaborative conversations. Utilizing these practices across the schoolhouse provides the consistency and repetition required to cement the practices in the students’ repertoire and ensure that practice with speaking and listening is a consistent feature of instruction all day, every day in all classes.
Active listening is characterized by the act of conscious attention and mental engagement with an auditory stimulus. Simply stated, active listening is paying attention to and thinking about what is heard. Active listening is a life skill that is applicable and appropriate across content areas. Considering that the attention span of an elementary school student is highly correlated to the student’s age and his or her engagement in the task, teaching students to become active listeners helps them become involved and extend attention. Classroom discussion about active listening should be clear and explicit. Teachers may find themselves reminding students to “be active listeners” or “use their active listening skills.” This toolkit includes protocols and anchor charts to assist teachers in promoting active listening.
Beginning in PreK, the MDCC-RS require that students participate in collaborative conversations. Such conversations should range in format as appropriate for the grade level, with ever-increasing responsibility placed on the students. Even at the earliest grades, students must “follow agreed-upon rules” including listening to each other, taking turns, and staying on topic through multiple exchanges. To promote such collaborative conversations in the classroom, teachers may find the use of discussion protocols helpful. This toolkit features three discussion protocols that focus on partner and small group discussion (turn and talk; think, pair, share; and pair/square). As students become proficient with these protocols, teachers may want to try additional protocols that foster small and whole group discussions. Some additional discussion protocols include jigsaw, book clubs, literature circles, carousel, and Socratic discussions/seminars.
Accountable Talk® is discussion characterized by active involvement of participants in an exchange of ideas that requires accountability and evidence for reasoning. For collaborative conversations to be effective, the talk should be accountable. When students participate in Accountable Talk® they share ideas, cite evidence for those ideas, ask one another questions to clarify or extend concepts, and build on the comments of others. When classrooms embrace and promote Accountable Talk® it becomes a norm for all discourse. Teachers model and provide supports (anchor charts, prompts, stems) as students learn to hold themselves and others accountable for what they say. Teachers and students may find themselves saying “can you tell me more about that?” or “what additional information supports your ideas?” This toolkit includes protocols and anchor charts to assist teachers in making classroom talk accountable.
Protocols: Active Listening Turn and Talk Think-Pair-Share Pair/Square Accountable Talk
Graphic Organizers: T-Chart Venn Diagram Web KWL Sequence Chain
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