Our discussion on class discussion

We are discussing ways in which students can feel secure in their answers/speech when called upon in class. One of the ways we discussed to encourage students to speak is to give the questions ahead of time. The students should have an opportunity to research the answer, and be able to respond. When reading aloud, we, as teachers, make mistakes intentionally so that they can correct you. At this state in linguistic development, we think it should be perfectly acceptable to let classmates help each other with responses. In the past, we feel that we have discounted techniques instead of "fixing" them to better fit our student population and needs. We are going to have conversations with our students about talking in class and the benefits from speaking with small groups of people. We have had conversations about how people in this world do judge you based upon your vocabulary and grammar. Next week we are going to review our data and create a rubric for which to grade student responses in class. We are trying to encourage any and all speech (but not THAT speech) in class, but with the end goal of students using a more formal register in class and discussion.

Our topic is speech production. (Getting students to speak more in class) For some of us, it is confidence and willingness to speak. As a group we are going to collect data about speech production in class. Specifically, students production and participation in class discussions. We are going to create a voice recording. We are looking for who is talking, how they are responding to questions, and wait time. We will ask Brittany Williams to help us with observation. This is baseline data to help us understand the best environment for students to talk and responded in. This will help us help them develop the confidence and the classrooms to produce speech in.