Research School Network: Mind Your Language This blog explores how adults can change their language to encourage greater independence in the maths classroom.

In this blog Laura Tullock and Judy Waddle explore how adults can change their language to support pupils to develop greater independence in the maths classroom.

Sound familiar? This is a phrase I’m sure many teachers have encountered in classrooms across the country, particularly in maths classrooms.

It’s a behaviour which teachers in an action research group led in partnership with the Newcastle Research School and the Great North Maths Hub have been exploring. The group have been looking at how some simple yet effective changes in language can influence the narrative – from pupils relying heavily on teacher support to them problem solving more independently.

Recommendation 5 of the EEF’s​Improving Mathematics at Key Stages 2 and 3 guidance report highlights the need for teachers to develop pupils’ independence and motivation. It also states that this ​‘requires pupils to develop metacognition — the ability to independently plan, monitor and evaluate their thinking and learning.’

Looking at the research evidence in this guidance report and linking it to others helped build a clear picture of the vital role adults play in this development.

Taken together with recommendations in the EEF Guidance Report Making the Best Use of Teaching Assistants, it became clear that the language we use can build independence in pupils.

In recommendation 3 of that report, the EEF gives a framework for considering interactions between pupils and teaching assistants.

Taking our reflections to the classroom, we observed pupils ​‘working independently’ at problem solving tasks and their interactions with adults. What we noticed across our settings was that when pupils became ​‘stuck’, they usually turned to an adult for support.

The support the adult then gave sat very much in the ​‘clueing’ domain of this framework: ​‘Look back in your books to help you’ or ​‘Where did I start in my example?’ were some examples heard. An extract from one case study below highlights this. Child A is six years old:

The impact of adult talk was evident, and we started to work on what we said, as well as working with our teaching assistants on what they said, to move from clueing to prompting and then to pupils self-scaffolding.

After a short time, we noticed that some simple changes of language, for example from ​‘If you’re stuck try…’ to ​‘What could you use to help you?’ were having a clear impact on pupils’ independence.

Whilst initially met with walls of silence from pupils, this noticeably changed and pupils’ independence began to increase. The change in pupil A (and the adult in the classroom) can be seen below:

The question ​‘Are you ok?’ was a pivotal moment in this interaction and appeared to prompt the pupil firstly to admit that they were​‘stuck’ and then secondly acted as a cue that they would be supported to become independent in their thinking.

One teacher said:

​“Instead of modelling the answer, I’m modelling my thought process more.”

This change wasn’t just noticed by one teacher, and we have been able to map the language we have used to the framework provided by the EEF:

It is important to note that this didn’t happen overnight. It took time. The research evidence paved the way for the adults to ​‘mind their language’ helping to build better mathematical independence and motivation with the pupils that they worked with.