Deborah Tannen's Essay 'Conversational Styles'

Summary Critique Essay Assignment

In Deborah Tannen’s essay “Conversational Styles” she explains why small group work should be in every classroom setting. She also explains the way men and woman use different languages. Tannen’s questionable assumption is that men and woman speak different in the classroom, fails to define participation, and fails to discuss the downside of working in small groups.

“Conversational Styles” by Deborah Tannen is about the importance of working a group setting. Tannen explains the difference between how boys and girls talk when they are children. Boys talked more about sports, insults, and making fun of other children. While girls talk to their one or two closest friends which were girls as well. Then Tannen

explains men and woman talk which is similar to when they were children. Men like to debate and make fun or others while woman talk about their problems and gossip with their closest friends.

Tannen talks about participation in the classroom with men and woman. She says how many men like to participate in class while many woman don’t speak and count how many times participate. Tannen decided to do a classroom experiment with the men and woman she taught. She divided her class into small groups which could be based on ethnicity, gender, and how often they spoke in class. During this experiment she noticed that most of the men and woman participated a little more. She asked her student if they liked small groups more than group discussion which no one said it bothered them. Tannen believes that all of the classrooms should have the small group interaction.

First off, Tannen makes questionable assumptions about how men and women speak in the classroom setting. Tannen says “It is simply that a greater percentage of discussion time is taken by men’s voice.”(pg. 315) While Tannen says this I question how she got to this conclusion without any sorts of evidence and it

matters because many woman would be offended to this quote if they talk just as much as men or even more. Throughout my life I feel as if woman talk more than men because I have had many woman teachers growing up that were passionate about education and talked a lot. While the couple male teachers I had in the classroom told us what to do and sat down, so they didn’t talk as much as the woman teachers did. Tannen explains that men are natural debaters which I agree with but don’t count woman out; most of my debate team in high school was woman we did pretty well too. Tannen also says that woman count the amount of times they speak in the class which I don’t believe is true because I don’t and I asked a few other classmates and they said no as well. There can be many aspects of why woman don’t speak such as they have nothing to say or someone says what they were going to say right before. Tannen is leaving a lot of evidence in her piece about men and woman in the classroom setting. “So one reason men speak in class more than woman is that many of them find the “public” classroom setting more conductive to speaking, whereas most woman are more comfortable speaking in private to a small group of people they know well. A second reason is that men are more likely to be comfortable with the debate-like form that discussion may take. Yet another reason is the different attitudes toward speaking in class that typify women and men.”(pg. 317-318) A few men I was friends with never spoke in class and a few woman always did so it depends on the person’s attitude about speaking or learning not their gender.
Furthermore, Tannen fails to define participation. Who defines what participation is? Teachers usually define what participation is which is usually talking in class and raising your hand to speak, but is that the only way to participate? My current professor made me think is participation only raising your hand and answering questions? I don’t believe it is. A huge way to participate is to express what you’re thinking by talking don’t get me wrong, but why can’t participation be listening, understanding, paying attention, or even writing notes? In Tannen’s essay she states “Most faculty members assume that participation in class discussion is a necessary part of successful performance.”(pg.315) However, people may be shy in class so they might just want to pay attention and write their questions down for later to ask in a private setting with a classmate or teacher. Should someone be docked participation points not speaking in class when they are present and want to learn especially at the college level? Participation can be shown in many ways.
Finally, Tannen neglects to talk about the downsides of working in small groups.

Tannen explains how the small group technic worked for her however she doesn’t have any evidence besides her own to prove it. There are many possibilities why it does work for her such as her teaching style, students willing to work with others, and subject that is being taught. She states that “Everyone in the class found the small groups interesting, and no one indicated he or she would have preferred that the class not break into groups.”(pg. 319) I do agree that small groups would be interesting, however who would go up to their professor and say I don’t like the small groups? The downsides of small groups from my experience is only one or two people actually do the work while the other’s talk about something else or people get off topic very easily which causes them not to do the work at all. Another downside is people possibly don’t understand what they are supposed to do so the group can’t talk about it or do their work because they people may not want to talk to their professor because then they will know that weren’t paying attention when they were given

instructions.
In conclusion of Tannen’s essay “Conversational Styles” is lacking evidence in all of the topics I stated mostly which she came to conclusion that men speak more than woman. Participation can be expressed in many ways besides just talking such as taking notes, listening, and paying attention. The small group technic doesn’t always work because it depends on the people in the class if you have a lot of chatter boxes it really wouldn’t work. Most importantly it depends on the person’s attitude toward speaking in class or attitude about learning.