A conversation with my student teacher (who slays) about student engagement got me thinking about a situation that I think most of us have run into at one point or another: the class that just wouldn’t talk. You may like every individual kid in that class, but when you try to do anything as a group, it feels like the air gets sucked out of the room. No matter what you say or do, the lack of reactions makes you feel alternately dumb, frustrated, out of touch, unskilled, straight up resentful, and like you want to throw in the towel and just sit in a monastic vow of silence for the rest of the school year.
A class comes to mind when I think of this scenario. It could have been anything – the time of day, the mix of introverts/extroverts, the class size – but the vibes just never really got off the ground. It can be easy for me to become bitter in a situation like this, especially when other classes have extensive lore in the Target Language and there’s that general buzz of connection every day.
When this happens, I try to take a deep breath, and adjust my plans and perspectives. I’ve been trying to maintain empathy for this generation’s social anxieties that are only exacerbated by the hyper-connectivity of social media and the ever-present feeling of surveillance by clandestine smartphone cameras. It can be hard to put yourself out there when there could be swiftly-shared, permanent evidence of your failures produced in an instant. So, I’ve tried various things to 1) help students build confidence in their abilities the Target Language, so that they feel less apprehension about speaking out in class and 2) help students build connections to their peers, so that they know that the audience for their attempts and experiments in the language is just like them, and will support them.
Here is the kitchen sink list of some things I have tried in classes that Just Won’t Talk, with some of the thinking behind each choice:
More Individual and Partner Work, Less Whole Class Discussion
I tend to favor input activities that develop conversation on a topic with the whole class. Story co-creation, weekend chats, personalized questions, and so on have been fuel for so much interpersonal connection across my career. But if it’s flopping, it’s flopping. We can get the same input to our students in different ways, while also building the capacity for these more open conversations in smaller ways.
That means maybe putting time limits on whole class conversations: 5 minutes-ish, and then move on to another activity. If there’s energy for more, we can keep going, but telling students ahead of time that we’re only going to do Calendar Talk (Weekend Chat, Card Talk, etc.) for 5 minutes as a class can sometimes build good will towards more time. (Or at the very least end, put a near end to everyone’s suffering, lol.)
Whole class instruction can be restructured to include more work guided by using graphic organizers to make sure students are still processing the input, or having students respond with response cards (A/B/C/D, True/False, etc.) or gestures to indicate their answers. Students can also prepare answers to more open questions by working with input with a partner before moving to the whole class discussion.
(Re-)Training Students How to Respond
Not all classes in school require students to respond chorally to questions, or even to be prepared to answer cold called questions at any time. My expectation is that students are ready for either kind of response at any moment. (One tradeoff I mention to my students is that they receive little to no German homework for their rapt attention and participation during class. A bit of goodwill comes from that – these kids have a lot of homework!)
All this to say: sometimes students need us to clearly describe and model what responding looks like. “Everyone responds at the same time, at my signal.” This can be a gesture towards the class that cues the response, a verbal countdown, or both together.
This also means we describe the why behind the procedure, so that students know what you’re looking for. I have standardized saying: “Hmm…I got kind of a weak response on that question. Either that says that I confused you, which is important for me to know so I can teach it better, or you’re just feeling sleepy. Let’s figure out which one.” Or if I’ve asked a lot of individual questions and most kids are kinda off, I have a sort of huddle with the class about how being able to answer these questions on the spot tells me the class is learning German, and giving me evidence that I’m not just talking to myself. A little bit of “why” goes a long way.
Explaining to students at the start of every class period that choral responses help me as the teacher get a sense for how the class is comprehending everything, so that I can know when to move on and when to stick with something new, keeps the expectation and the “why” fresh in students’ minds. Indeed, one of my class expectations is simply “respond” (the others being “look” and “listen.”)
Partnering Strategies
Students in quiet classes will sometimes try to plead that they “work best with people they know,” which I don’t accept as a reason for not participating or getting to know peers. I want for my students to develop Interpersonal Communication skills, which include being able to maintain conversations with others, even if they don’t know them.
I’ve developed a variety of strategies to get students partnered up and started on tasks. These include map partners a la Bryce Hedstrom, seat partners, having every other row in my classroom turn around so that they’re facing their new partner, using a service like Flippity (Random Name Picker) or ClassDojo to randomize the class list into partners, and cutting up a cultural postcard so that groups have to form based on putting the pieces together. Force students to work with a variety of students so that the social barriers between students get broken down, bit by bit.
It’s also important to have something for students to do if their chosen partner isn’t in class at that time. I always go to the same spot in my classroom, and tell my students to meet me there if their partner isn’t present for whatever reason.
What To Do When You Get There
Sometimes students don’t know how to initiate new interactions with unfamiliar peer. They’re partnered up, get to their partner, and then just…sit in silence. I try to remember to always include (and model) the first conversational turn students could make to start the task they’re working on together.
It might be something like: “When you get to your partner, say, ‘Good morning! My name is _. What is your name?'” This means that students don’t have to generate something themselves, and the conversation is already started, getting over the first affective hurdle for our shy or not-as-extroverted students. Later in the course, you can add personalized questions, content questions, just asking how their day is going, and so on.
Sentence Stems and Activating Prior Knowledge
Students’ brains need to be gear-shifted into the language and content as they enter class or take up their first communicative task. Helping students activate prior knowledge via the use of images, reviewing a summary of previous learning, and even the use of sentence stems can help students get the wheels moving in their new language, and avoid awkward struggling in front of their peers to recall what was learned maybe 24 or 48 hours (or longer!) prior.
Storyasking Tweaks
Co-created stories are an incredible way to engage student creativity, provide lots of comprehensible input in context, and build class community through the creation of common class experiences (or, as the children would say, “lore”). [We even did a whole episode of the podcast about the motivational effects of co-creating content with students!]
…buuuuut if no one is contributing ideas, none of these things are possible. One tweak to storyasking I have used is having students contribute ideas before the story even begins. For example, I have given students cards with categories on them (“something to drink”, “a number between 1 and 9999”, “a business name”, etc.), had them write down ideas individually, and then turn those cards back into me. As I was telling the story, all I had to do was draw a card from the needed category, and I had a personalized detail specific to the class, and could continue telling the story. Doing this successfully avoided the ask for details from the teacher that ended in deafening student silence, and the stories turned out pretty fun. Check out an example of the cards I cut out for a story for my level 2 students. I printed multiples of each card so that each student filled out two different categories, and then had plenty of ideas for our story.
“Show Call”
Sometimes, our students don’t know they’re doing well. If I am circulating while students are chatting or writing, and I hear or see something that could be a good model for other students, I discreetly ask the student, “Hey, can I ask you to answer that question in front of the class in a second? It sounded great!” Students usually respond positively to the praise part, and are more ready to show off. The rest of their peers get to see them trying something out in their new language, and getting positive vibes no matter what “errors” might have been present.
Because here’s the thing: it doesn’t even need to be a “perfect-sounding” answer. It is possible to communicate with others, even if you are “committing errors.” So seeing their peers just trying and getting the positive feedback of the teacher responding to the content of the message may help students let go of some of their anxieties about being “perfect.”
Mini Whiteboards
I know Dr. Liam Printer is a huge fan of using mini whiteboards to have students answer questions, and I can see why. You very quickly get feedback from every student on whether or not they’re comprehending the language you’re using, and how comfortable they feel responding in the L2.
We can pause to ask a quick mini whiteboard question, or have them at the ready throughout the entire lesson. Students can translate, provide a personal answer to a question, respond to a circling question, draw a picture, rank, sort, agree and disagree…and then the teacher can provide even more input personalized to the class by observing and responding to student answers. Because everyone is prompted to write, you avoid the trap of asking a question that everyone is too nervous to answer aloud.
Just reading a text aloud
Students tend to have anxiety about pronunciation in the Target Language. My students have tended to end up with decent-sounding accents because of lots of exposure to the Target Language in class (aka we’re not just doing textbook grammar and vocabulary activities), but actually getting the sounds out of their mouths still inspires anxiety.
Having a class choral read a text aloud can help build confidence in pronouncing the language. It may also help students build their reading comprehension in the L2, especially with repeated readings of the same text after the teacher models pronunciation, pace, and prosody. (We cover whole class choral reading as a strategy on the podcast, actually!)
Practice Before Performance – With Lots of Modeling!
My professor in my teaching program always said, “practice before performance.” Especially with new language structures and sounds, it helps to have the teacher model a lot in the language input, and then have students “practice” with partners before being asked to respond in front of the class. This can veer away from communicating with real purpose, but we can always ask students to report out on their partners’ responses, as well as compare! Just the bit of preparation can help calm nerves that prevent full participation.
Rejoinder Coaching
I learned about the power of teaching students rejoinders from Grant Boulanger. These small bits of memorized language can help students respond emotionally to something that’s happening in class without requiring them produce tons of spontaneous language.
My classes (aka I, as the teacher) tend to forget to use these as the year wears on, so in addition to modeling by thinking aloud about what known rejoinders would be logical to use to react to a situation, I can also ask the students what they think. This usually turns into a fun game as I narrate their responses and the consequences of them. (“You think it is ‘so cool’ that Soandso has three tests this week?? Are you secretly a teacher? Do you love school? How many tests do you have?” etc etc) This playfulness shows students that they can also be playful in class, and help them not feel so serious about “trying to get things right.”
Q+A Game
Again, sometimes students just need to practice using the language on a small, lower-stakes scale before graduating to more open use in front of the class. The Question and Answer Game is a great way to build that confidence because every response, even a logical response in the L1, earns points. Because it keeps communication going and shows engagement with the language!
Volleyball / Table Tennis Reading
Another opportunity for students to take the language for a spin, and confirm their comprehension of a text. This also buys you time as the teacher to help students with trouble spots and increase confidence and competence. I tend to overuse Volleyball/Table Tennis reading, but it’s a great break for the teacher that gives you time to check in on the kids.
Words of Affirmation
There are two facets to this. The first is that celebrating every student attempt at communication can have huge effects on overall confidence in the class. Just the other day, a student started to make fun of another student’s pronunciation of something, and I stopped the class. I told everyone, “I want to make sure we all know: whenever someone makes an attempt to communicate in [L2] in this class, we listen to understand it, not to judge it. We don’t make fun of pronunciation or grammar: we listen for the message behind it.” I then got the class to agree to do just that. Vibes were restored, and it also sets expectations for student behavior that will help students feel safer to contribute whatever they’ve got.
The second aspect is that students can get lost in the long journey of language acquisition, and they need a guide (us) to show them where they are on that journey. Otherwise, they may not see the point of all our questions in the Target Language. Positive responses to student participation like “every time you tried to use the language today, it made it easier for your brain to access it in the future!” and “It feels slow and little, but your responses to my questions today showed me that your language is growing!” help relieve the internal expectation students might have to produce perfect sentences readily and regularly. It’s okay to need time – communication is what’s most important!
Whisper the Answer
I saw a teacher recommend in a Facebook group that if students want to share out about something in a less-structured activity format (like during Card Talk, Calendar Talk, Weekend Chat, etc.), we can offer them to do it in the L2, or whisper in L1 to us. This can give us a chance to filter for them, use our strong voices to share their ideas and experiences like they’re the coolest thing ever, and keep the L2 flow in class. I love that this also helps keep the sidebar stories from getting too crazy. Maybe this will work to boost the status of our quieter students, too!
Sometimes, the whisper can be just answering a question ahead of time, on paper. Maybe during the warm up, maybe during a random moment in class, but then we can filter and highlight interesting answers and build more conversation out of them.
Seize the Moment
In Acquisition-Driven Instruction World, we are often told to Teach to the Eyes. This gives us a temperature check on student comprehension and confidence. It also helps us observe and listen more closely to our students – which can help build positive vibes and community. Students want to be where they felt heard.
I was once working with a teacher who lamented “not being funny” because they felt that their classes never got to the energy level that they had seen at a teacher conference from very extroverted, hyped-up-on-hotel-coffee presenter. The truth is that students are SO funny…you just have to catch the funny things that they say, repeat them, and play with them. Take your time, listen to the little whispers and side comments, and let a student’s fun response be the star of the input for a while. This works not just for funny comments, but interesting ones, too! We don’t have to create standup comedy continuously for students. We can just celebrate their experiences of life and the world, and turn them into moments of connection for all.
Just Ask Them What’s Up
Students often feel that school is something that is done to them, rather than with them. Building a collaborative relationship with your quiet classes can be empowering and engaging. Students get to know that their thoughts are being heard and honored, and we can sometimes get to the bottom of sticking points in the class atmosphere.
You might try just telling a class, “I noticed that we don’t often respond to the more open-ended questions I ask about your opinions/lives. I want to know more about y’all, and it gives us lots to talk about! What’s going on?” Students can share with each other first, and then the class if that feels like it’s going to be productive. Alternately, they can be prompted to write about what they think is going on in class, and suggestions they have for what might help them feel more confident to participate in class.
Some of their suggestions might be less-than-useful (“I just want to sit next to my friend [who I will talk to in L1 about whatever instead of engaging in L2]” etc.), but perhaps your students will provide some key info about class dynamics or habits that are making it hard for the class to buzz. At the very minimum, it is a way for the teacher to show their students that they’re thinking about their learning experiences, and that they matter to them.
And…
Sometimes it’s just hard. It just is. We must try as hard as we can to not beat ourselves up about it, and experiment, experiment, experiment with our classes until we see what really seems to work for them. Try different things out, see the effects, and ask students why they thought activities were successful or not successful.
And maybe they’ll just be quiet the whole year. What else can we do but speak life into them as future global thinkers and communicators, and show them what we love about our languages and cultures?
I had a level 2 class in the past few years that was causing me to lose what’s left of my hair. I would ask a question, and then could hear the silence, it was so loud. I emptied my teacher toolkit on that class trying to get to the bottom of it. And even at the end, when things were better, it was never easy.
And then well over half of those students chose to take an (optional) third year of German with me. And the vibes were so different! So who really knows…