Making Students’ Oral Language Central to Instruction

From the Marshall Memo #425

“Let them talk!” urge Harvard Ed School lecturer Pamela Mason and doctoral student Emily Phillips Galloway in this Reading Today article. Many disadvantaged students enter school with strong oral language skills, they say, only to be stifled by too much teacher talk and teacher control. “When seen from a strength-based perspective,” say Mason and Galloway, “these children are competent communicators in their families and in their communities where language is a medium to form social connections and to communicate needs, wants, and hopes.” The key is to respect the language and dialect of the home, allow students plenty of opportunities to express themselves in class, continuously add academic vocabulary, synonyms, and imagery to their repertoires, and help them learn when and where to use different registers.

“Central to developing classroom contexts where rich oral language development occurs,” say Mason and Galloway, “is the establishment of a norm that promotes listening.” Modeling and thinking aloud are all well and good, but there are times when it’s best for teachers to hold their peace and listen as students ask for clarification, respond to their peers, summarize what they’re learned, explain a process, and respond to a piece of literature. “This is not an ‘add on’, but it is an essential component of every effective lesson,” they conclude. “Rich discussions will engage students in their learning, provide them with opportunities to try out ideas and to receive feedback from their peers and teachers, and expand their existing oral language skills to include those used in academic contexts.” 

“Let Them Talk!” by Pamela Mason and Emily Phillips Galloway in Reading Today, February/March 2012 (Vol. 29, #4, p. 29-30); the authors can be reached at pamela_mason@gse.harvard.edu and ecp450@mail.harvard.edu.