Introduction and Rationale
Talk moves are strategies that are used to promote, guide, and enhance discussion between a teacher and students and amongst the students themselves and also to hold students more accountable for their own learning and participation in the classroom. The talk move strategy that I choose to analyze from my own teaching was revoicing. Revoicing is where the teacher restates a question or statement that a student asks or says. The main purpose for revoicing what a student says is twofold. First, it allows all students to hear the question if they could not hear what was initially said. Revoicing also allows the student to rehear his or her own question or statement again to make sure that the teacher understood precisely what was said.
When making the decision which talk move I wanted to analyze, I looked across all of my classes and the nature of the discussions within them. Some classes are better than others at holding discussions but in the classes that I would rank as having the lowest discussion and participatory skills, revoicing made the most sense. I picture one class. Pre-Calculus, where I have some real talkative students who always want their questions answered immediately while other students in the class completely ignore everything that is going around them. I thought that by focusing on revoicing, I would be able to slow down the very talkative students by giving them more time to process while trying to give the inattentive students another way to refocus without putting them on the spot in the middle of class and forcing them into the conversation.
Unfortunately, based on the schedule which included a unit assessment, conferences, and spring break, there were not three consecuti...
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...e video camera did not pick up an audible sound. I also know that at times I do not speak loud enough to the whole class, in particular in Pre-Calculus, when addressing an individual’s question that was addressed to the whole class. The Pre-Calculus class is where I need to revoice more since I view that class as having the largest gap in participation between students and could benefit the most from the change.
I do feel though that I am more cognizant after deciding to focus on this talk move because I find myself making a mental note of when I do revoice. Revoicing is relatively easy to do when the class size is small and I am not under a time constraints. When the class size is larger and the class is moving a quicker pace, it is more challenging to make the decision to revoice. This is where I should and need to focus more going forward with revoicing.
I froze. I felt my smile fading away and my tendency to overthink going into action immediately. What do I do? What if I say something wrong? What if I don’t do enough? Other underclassmen often asked me about my experience in certain classes
When looking at not just this class but all of my classes and looking at how I have been approaching them versus how I should approach them it definitely puts my mind in a different perspective because I am a person that “strives for excellence” and if I am able to “ace” a class then I definitely try and do that but a lot of the time that doesn’t mean sitting there and actually learning the information it means
We need to adapt vocabulary and consider how we interact positively with pupils as we listen and respond them.
Public Speaking or Small Group Communications? That was the question during class registration of my spring semester. Neither sounded intriguing. The thought of speaking in front of an audience did not sit well with me. After a mental debate on whether I preferred to stand up in front of an audience by myself or with a group of students, the group scenario won. Truthfully, the reason behind this debate and my participation in any communications class was simply because it was a required course that needed to be completed. I had no idea what this class had in store for me. The quality and necessity of the information provided throughout the course were unknown to me at the time. Looking back, I realized how much I had missed in the first weeks of this course because of my attitude towards a class I was not particularly interested in. After I changed my outlook of this course, everything changed. I finally understood what an enormous advantage I have over other people who have never taken a small group communications class. Now I have the knowledge that will help me throughout my future career and everyday life. Through the completion of this course, I now understand the principles of group communication, know how to be an effective participant in a small group, and have the skills that assist in making group decisions that are both effective and appropriate.
Before this course. I had learned some public speaking skills in the previous classes, such us how to manage my eye contact, facial expression, gestures
The irony is that speaking to others is one of the most important, if not the most important, professional and personal skill students must have to be successful (Doyle 88). The student needs to understand the importance of this skill and realize that in the future many opportunities and career successes are directly impacted by working with others. Students are also encouraged to take charge of their learning. Giving the student control and as many choices is a good way to optimized their learning.
However, there is only one downfall to this class. When presenting videos, as a class, we are to give written and verbal feedback to students. I feel that in some cases other classmates did not take feedback respectively. I feel like it was disrespectful. Despite my help, I felt like the classmate was trying to prove a point at the learner’s expense. I understand it is hard to take constructive criticism. However, we only learn from feedback. I felt like this behavior inhibited our classroom’s learning environment. Our professor, Many, did a great job trying to deflect the situation. Mandy tried to effectively defuse the situation when
In the present United States, a mixture of males and females make up a university classroom. In life, males and females have different conversational styles. The ways that they communicate to each other in a conversation, as well as how they communicate with their instructors and peers in the classroom. Although there is a combination of both genders in the classrooms, schools gravitate more towards using learning techniques that are more applicable towards men than women (Tannen 369). When teaching with a mixture of people that learn differently, it is difficult to have a certain technique to use that would help everybody in the same way. Yet it is important that equal opportunities are given to both genders that allows them to do their best and succeed in their academic careers. Educational professionals need to understand the conversational differences in gender and have better teaching strategies that fit both male and female conversational styles.
The pre-observation allowed me to better understand the lesson and get information on the kindergarten students in the classroom. The teacher stated she wanted the students to demonstrate an understanding of using beginning sounds to form words. The teacher used current assessment data when planning the lesson. When d...
A major proportion of class time is taken up by teachers talking in front of the classroom(Nunan & Bailey, 2009). No matter what teaching strategies or methods a teacher uses, it is necessary to give directions, explain activities and check students’ understanding (Richards & Schimdt, 1985). This clearly emphasizes the importance of teacher talk in language classrooms. Walsh (2011) claimed that teacher talk is more important in language classroom than any other classroom since in this context the language being used by teacher is not only the means of acquiring new knowledge; it is also the goal of the study.
Change can have many meanings. It is going from “same” to “different”. Change can be defined as an event that occurs when something passes from one state or phase to another and as a process of transition. The forces of change affect attitudes, beliefs and behavior. Not a single moment goes by when everything in our lives will remain the same. When you become adjusted to your surroundings, something changes again. Changes can affect both individuals and groups. Throughout our lives we go through many changes, especially in adolescence.
In today’s society, Technology is the main player in the way we communicate. Cell phones and social media made the communication easier for people to contact each other. It extends time less to connect between long distance friends. Also, it helps people to spread and enlarge circle of friendships around the world. However, people are losing the way of face-to-face conversation. Sherry Turkle is an expert on culture and therapy, mobile technology, social networking, and sociable robotics argued in her article “the flight from conversation” how using technology can affect our behavior in conversation.
Discussion, the active learner participates in peer discussion and any other assignment. This will help problem solving, experimentation, synthesis and other evaluation of contents.
Another concern that some students might have is communication. Some students might not need to have a teacher in front of them and teach the course material to them, to whereas some students might need the te...
On the next two sections the same activity and same class discussion. While students are doing their activity I am secretly observing their attitudes; the way they speak, the way they move and the way they perform their tasks. I was very careful with my words that time, for me not to commit mistakes and because I want to get the attention of my students I remained serious all throughout the