Background: The growing population of students that are learning science through a Content and Language Integrated Learning approach (CLIL) has led to concerns about these students' ability to fully participate in a rich classroom discourse to develop content knowledge. A lack of information about science development through classroom discourse in…

"Accountable Talk" begins with students thinking out loud about a complex problem that requires collaboration: noticing something about the problem, questioning a surprising finding, or articulating, explaining, and reflecting upon their own reasoning. The teacher works to elicit a range of ideas, which may be incomplete. With teacher…

Establishing a communication-rich classroom can be difficult. This article describes the process and findings of a practitioner action research study addressing the question of how teachers can interact with their students while they are working in groups to encourage and enhance student-to-student communication. Recommended research-based teacher…

This article analyzes illustrative classroom events documented during an ethnographic study of bilingual classrooms in a "high-achieving" school. Through a performativity lens that emphasizes the discursive constitution of subjectivities, I demonstrate how discourses around achievement and success in the current reform context exacerbated one…

To be effective, thinking skills interventions are likely to require specific fine-grain changes in the quantity and quality of teacher-pupil and pupil-pupil dialogue in the classroom, but these are difficult to establish. This study investigated the effects of collaborative philosophical enquiry over time on quantity and quality of interactive…

This article describes a student affairs practitioner's experience with co-instructing a course entitled, "Queer(y)ing Religion and Spirituality". The ways practitioners can facilitate difficult dialogues with students about the intersection of spirituality and GLBT issues are explored.

Outlines a four step plan (Model, Assess, Prepare, and Practice) to improve students' listening attitudes and skills, primarily through teacher modeling. (Author/SJL)

Discusses three types of student-constructed responses that use expressive rather than receptive modes of communication. These types are constructing questions given some information, constructing word problems for peers, and asking questions related to a problem. (MKR)

This report provides a rationale for making inquiry-oriented discussions a more integral part of classroom practice. It begins by identifying five features that make this type distinct from other types of discussion--focusing especially on the use of multiple texts. Then, the heart of the report explains the concepts and practices that are central…

Discusses the use of gesture and nonverbal communication techniques as a way to (1) involve students in more direct use of the target language, (2) increase teacher control over class atmosphere, (3) provide smoother transition and pace, and (4) provide a closer student-teacher rapport. (EKN)

Argues that questions can guide the course of knowledge acquisition and that they, combined with other factors, can create the figure and ground of text. (FL)

Identifies, categorizes, and explains four types of classroom communication (alchemistic/prewriting, analytic, evaluative, and closure talk) that improve student writing. (RL)

Presents a classroom scenario in which a student concocts a unique solution to a standard circle exercise and the class attempts to verify if the solution works for all cases of the problem. (MKR)

Presents a way to design lesson plans that takes into account four modes of communication (oral, written, visual, and kinesthetic) and four audiences (self, partner, small group, and whole class) and that allows for reflection based on the NCTM Standards. (MKR)

Presents two examples of matrix technique discussion units, which are intended to provide some initial structure to aid teachers in planning classroom discussion. (Author/MKR)