Increasing Talk Time in World Language Classes

At the middle school where I teach, my colleagues and I stand in the hallways to supervise students’ transition from one class to the next. The kids squeeze in as much conversation as possible in the four minutes between bells. Because we are a dual language immersion (DLI) school, these exchanges happen in Spanish, English, and many creative blends of the two. To capitalize on my students’ (seemingly inexhaustible) desire to chat, I work to increase student talk time in our Spanish immersion classes. I use several strategies to build and assess students’ oral language.

What’s My Why? Reasons for Increasing Talk Time 

Increasing student talk in class is important for student engagement and developing thinking. As Shana Frazin and Katy Wischow explain in Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk, discussion time creates community and provides opportunities for students to digest challenging content. In my classroom, talk also acts as a bridge between the varieties of Spanish and English that students use in social settings and those that they read in—for example, a higher Lexile CommonLit text on Lin-Manuel Miranda or a social studies Mini-Q on Hammurabi’s Code. Students check in with one another to ask questions like “¿Qué significa homenaje?” or “How do you say fair in Spanish?” 

I also encourage talk in my classroom because in our district, students’ language production helps them earn high school credits. When students intentionally practice speaking in class, they are prepared to put their best foot forward on challenging ACTFL-based assessments, which measure students’ proficiency in world languages. In other words, students’ performance on these evaluations leads to tangible benefits for them.

Strategies to Get Started

Building dedicated talk time into every class can be simple and low-stakes. One of my students’ favorite activities is a talk-centered warm-up. I project a quote or image, and then students use dice and numbered conversation cards to discuss it. As students roll the dice, they try different academic language frames. For instance, if they roll a three, their task is to ask a question using the sentence frame, “¿Puedes explicar…?” / “Can you explain…?” The dice make talking feel like a game. Students can keep track of points to compete individually or in groups.

I also like using movement games because middle school students are wiggly. For a formative assessment at the end of class, we begin by standing. One student starts with a ball and shares a word from class (e.g., vocabulary or an important concept). Once they share, they toss the ball to another classmate and then sit down to show that they have participated. Students must listen actively because they cannot repeat what their classmates have already said. This ball toss is infinitely customizable and does not even require standing or a ball. The same formative assessment could be completed with students seated at their desks, marking their participation with a red or green card. 

Strategies to Go Further

Once I sense that my students feel comfortable responding aloud to content-specific questions, I experiment with other talk routines. Socratic seminar, or “Pilotos,” as we call it in our DLI classes, is one of my favorites. We often use it as a formative assessment on topics related to a unit's essential questions (e.g., “How did Islam influence Africa?” or “How can we use artifacts to learn about a civilization?”). This activity requires a full 45-minute class period with my seventh graders, and I see most improvement when we practice once or twice per quarter. Here are the essential components of our seminars:

1. I encourage students to be the first “pilot” (or speaker) for their group by providing the most straightforward questions in round one. As students get more comfortable with the seminar topic, they are prepared to respond to the more analytical questions that come in later rounds. For us, the sweet spot is usually two or three rounds of questions. 
2. Students initially direct their responses to me, but this activity works best when students are in conversation with each other. Over the course of the school year, I teach students to interact student-to-student rather than student-to-teacher by reminding them that they should look at their peers when talking and that they should try to respond to what their classmates have said rather than solely adding new ideas. 
3. I put into practice the Universal Design for Learning principle of multiple means of engagement during Socratic seminars. Students can take on many roles, from quietly tracking the conversation or writing a reflection on what they hear to verbally discussing ideas with a three-person team or with the whole group. 

A Few Challenges to Assessing Student Talk 

There have been a few hurdles to assessing students’ language production in my classes. For one, speech is spontaneous, so assessments usually happen in the moment. (I have learned the hard way that grading 48 two-minute recordings during my scant prep time is no fun.) Additionally, assessing language can feel subjective, so criteria must be clear. An easy way that I check this is to have students listen to a few speaking samples with me before we begin the activity and then use a five-point proficiency rubric to determine how we would grade each one. If our scores are the same, then the rubric is sufficiently comprehensible and reliable. If they are not, then we revise the rubric together. 

When we practice oral language in class, I notice that engagement becomes more visible and class feels more fun. Students encourage each other to speak up as I take a step back. There are also cross-curricular benefits that come from our structured practice, including a greater attention to detail. When students know that part of their grade comes from giving multiple reasons to support their opinions, they rise to the occasion and work to meet the requirements.

For instance, when asked about how the spread of Islam changed Africa, students initially respond with simple answers, such as “Islam changed the culture of Africa.” When they understand that they are responsible for providing reasons to support their responses, they express more complex ideas, such as “Islam changed the culture of Africa because it influenced the types of art in mosques, like we saw in the pictures in the textbook.” As we aim to increase students’ oral language skills, my advice is to think of our classrooms as laboratories. We can experiment with a variety of strategies to build and assess student talk so that we find what works best.