We need to talk about talking in class

The sound of silence
For the past few years, even before the pandemic, silent classrooms have been the fashion(Gardner, 2021; Sequeira, 2020). Part of this is likely down to the belief that a silent classroom conveys two things: strong behaviour management and a culture of ‘thinking hard’(Wenham, 2019). Surely if students aren’t talking, they must be thinking, right?

Like many ideas in education, the silence in classrooms appears to have undergone a lethal mutation – no longer is silent work considered an ingredient of a successful lesson, rather an indicator of a successful lesson. As many schools have shifted more closely to a direct-instruction model (as opposed to discovery or more student-led learning), students’ dialogue in classrooms is often reduced to either recitation, or is the preserve of only the highest attaining classes(O’Connor et al., 2017).

Perhaps as a side-effect of online learning, many students are now only too willing to stay silent for whole lessons – and not necessarily because they are being well behaved. Recent research reveals a significant number of students expressing that online learning encouraged them to be silent: they no longer felt a responsibility to participate because nobody was holding them accountable(Zhou, 2021). It could be that because of this choice to not participate in classes online, students have lost – or at least somewhat forgotten – their ability to read the social cues of the classroom. Therefore they enact ‘silence-as-presence’(Sulzer, 2022): a conscious choice to remain silent to minimise their own anxieties around taking part in classroom activity.

However, perfectly silent classrooms can stifle critical thinking(Majors, 2017). Instead of working to understand what they’re being taught, students are habitually passive in class, knowing that they do not really have to think at all: this passivity can eventually lead to a hyper-didactic classroom approach where the teacher becomes the conduit for all knowledge and understanding; or as it is more commonly known, spoon-feeding(Eshchar-Netz et al., 2022). With most GCSE courses being assessed entirely without coursework, exams rely on students being able to use and manipulate the knowledge they have: passive silence is doing them no favours.

Hidden voices
Worse than creating a culture of passivity, classrooms which rely on silence could be harming the prospects of students who arrive at school already disadvantaged. Research indicates students with high prior attainment do better in silent classrooms: they are called on by teachers more frequently and more likely to be able to give extended answers. Conversely, students with lower prior attainment are chosen less often to answer questions and use their choice to remain silent as a way of entrenching their position as being ‘less able’ in lessons(Sedova & Navratilova, 2020). This isn’t a phenomenon linked to ‘good’ behaviour: even students who display exemplary behaviour in class but have low prior attainment are disadvantaged by a lack of classroom discourse(Sedova & Sedlacek, 2023). This may be as without being able to hear a range of viewpoints and opinions, it is difficult to settle on one’s own thoughts: knowledge remains as isolated facts rather than elements of a larger, more abstract concept.

Often, students aren’t invited to participate in classroom talk because they are ‘shy’ – either identifying as such themselves or being labelled by the teacher(Nyborg et al., 2022). But oracy is an important pedagogical strategy – allowing students to hide behind that label means less participation in the lesson and so teachers need to overcome the urge to let them be, and instead adapt their teaching to make sure that even shy children are speaking aloud regularly.

Speaking up
Undeniably, there is a time and a place for silence in a classroom: exam practice, for instance. Or extended writing tasks which require independence and resilience. We know though, that students – regardless of gender, social background, or prior learning – learn more and perform better in assessments when they are exposed to discussions in the classroom(Sedova et al., 2019). Furthermore, classroom discussion – in addition to direct instruction – has been shown to increase the progress that students make relative to peers who receive only direct instruction in otherwise silent classrooms(Larrain et al., 2019). It is clearly important then, that schools aim to increase participation in lessons.

The idea of ‘Ratio’ as expressed in Teach Like A Champion(Lemov, 2021: 266)encourages teachers to think about how many students are participating in activities, and how hard they are thinking, with the aim of ensuring everyone participates and thinks deeply. Oracy tasks and discussions need to be carefully planned and explicitly taught, otherwise they have the potential to descend into anarchy(Berrill & Hopkins, 2021: 123). Formative assessment approaches based around questioning are an easy way to ensure student participation and can be easily included in teachers’ planning. Carefully planned questions and an insistence on more than one-word or one-sentence answers are the most basic way of gauging understanding while also getting students talking. Research has shown that many students prefer to be ‘nominated’ to speak by their teacher(Karas & Uchihara, 2021), so the use of cold calling is an easy win. Thoughtfully planned structured discussion tasks(Didau, 2018)ensure that every student in the room is listening, as they need to hear what other participants have said to further the argument. The best thing about these strategies is that they are not the preserve of one school subject: they can be used everywhere by every teacher.

It is imperative then, to help scaffold and facilitate purposeful talk and discussion in every subject in schools. Not only is there an academic argument, but also a social-justice argument: think about the divides (socio-economic, class, gender, etc.) which are likely to be entrenched if the same students are the only ones to contribute to discussions. We should want for no student to go through an entire day without speaking; we should want every child to find their voice.

References

- Berrill, M., & Hopkins, N. (2021). 7 Oracy, dialogic learning and education for democracy. Bringing the Curriculum to Life: Engaging Learners in the English Education System, 113.
-Didau, D. (2018, November 9). How to explain… structured discussion.
-Eshchar-Netz, L., Vedder-Weiss, D., & Lefstein, A. (2022). Status and inquiry in teacher communities. Teaching and Teacher Education, 109.
-Gardner, P. (2021, February 5). Let’s not overlook the benefits of a quiet classroom. TES.
- Karas, M., & Uchihara, T. (2021). Silence: A duoethnography. Journal of Silence Studies in Education, 1(1), 64 – 75.
-Larrain, A., Freire, P., López, P., & Grau, V. (2019). Counter-Arguing During Curriculum-Supported Peer Interaction Facilitates Middle-School Students’ Science Content Knowledge. Cognition and Instruction, 37(4), 453 – 482.
-Lemov, D. (2021). Teach like a champion 3.0: 63 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College. John Wiley & Sons.
-Majors, Y. (2017). Silence as Indicator of Engagement. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 61(1), 91 – 93.
-Nyborg, G., Mjelve, L. H., Edwards, A., Crozier, W. R., & Coplan, R. J. (2022). Working relationally with shy students: Pedagogical insights from teachers and students. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 33.
-O’Connor, C., Michaels, S., Chapin, S., & Harbaugh, A. G. (2017). The silent and the vocal: Participation and learning in whole-class discussion. Learning and Instruction, 48, 5 – 13.
-Sedova, K., & Navratilova, J. (2020). Silent students and the patterns of their participation in classroom talk.Journal of the Learning Sciences, 29(4 – 5), 681 – 716.
-Sedova, K., & Sedlacek, M. (2023). How vocal and silent forms of participation in combination relate to student achievement.Instructional Science.
-Sedova, K., Sedlacek, M., Svaricek, R., Majcik, M., Navratilova, J., Drexlerova, A., Kychler, J., & Salamounova, Z. (2019). Do those who talk more learn more? The relationship between student classroom talk and student achievement. Learning and Instruction, 63.
- Sequeira, L.-A. (2020, July 9). Silence in the classroom is not necessarily a problem. LSE Blog.
-Sulzer, M. A. (2022). Silence as absence, silence as presence: A discourse analysis of English language arts teachers’ descriptions of classroom silences.Linguistics and Education, 68.
- Wenham, L. (2019). ’It’s horrible. And the class is too silent’-A silent classroom environment can lead to a paralysing fear of being put on the spot, called-out, shown up, shamed or humiliated. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS), 17(1).
-Zhou, X. (2021). Why Keep Silent Online? Voices from Stay-at-home Postgraduate Students. International Journal of Social Science Studies, 9(4), 7.

3 May, 2023 —
Blog