Probing Conversations

Another approach to teaching listening – which I like to use as a “signature approach” in academic contexts – is what I call “probing conversations” or “active conversations” or “academic conversations”.  This is really a way to get students to talk about what they understand, what they don’t understand, and how they might learn something from other people’s understandings (imagine that!). It’s actually a counterpoint to what the image here shows: the students are not talking about “me, me, me”; they’re talking about the ideas and their partner’s views first…

This type of conversation might be considered an “ice breaker” approach to learning, because most of the time the classroom that has students engaged in real academic conversations resembles a cocktail party – but with very focused and very structured conversations taking place.

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Probing conversations

The second approach to teaching listening is scaffolding the ways students approach understanding, exploration, and application of what they hear in real time. In this approach,  listeners actively construct meaning through conversational practices of examining their own development of understanding, and through querying their peers’ understanding of the same input or experience. Often called “academic conversation”, this approach involves affective, cognitive, and social elements (Zwiers & Soto, 2016).

A  probing conversation, or an “academic conversation” is a learned structure in which students practice discussing complex issues and defend their thinking. The concept of structured conversation for learning is certainly not new (cf. Cazden, 2001; Goldenberg, 1992). Through the use of academic conversations students learn to articulate their thinking, investigate their own thinking processes and the thinking of others, and actively listen to each other. A shift from “normal conversation” to “academic conversation” is achieved gradually through the use of conversation starters, such as “My experience with this is…” and “What do you mean by that reference?”

Teachers have long encouraged their students to discuss what they have read or watched or heard as a way of deepening their comprehension skills. Unfortunately, without guidance or modeling, a typical classroom “discussion” may go something like this:

Student A: What was the main idea of the story?

Student B: Courage.

Student A: Yeah, the guy was brave.

Student B: OK. What do we do now?

Left to their own devices, students may resort to the familiar “game over” strategy: how to most quickly and efficiently “beat” the game. Many classroom activities, such as think-pair-share or vocabulary games often devolve in this way: they elicit short bursts of student output and interaction, but do not lead to extended discussions, personal engagement, or co-construction of new ideas (Hall, 2016).  For many students, this “opting out” behavior may be due to social awkwardness, habitual interaction patterns, or lack of guidance and support for having more meaningful conversations. Teachers who allow this weakened discourse to occur repeatedly likely need additional training in how to intervene and support better conversations (Singer, 2018).

What has proven to be helpful to students of all ages, but particularly school age students, is to demonstrate the idea of “conversation strategy” explicitly in a framework and present specific language frames for the students to use when they enact the strategy.

For example:

A number of studies of productive academic discussions — what Singer & Zwiers (2016)  call “powerful conversations” have revealed at least six distinct discourse exchange types that can be modeled for students (Beglar & Murray, 2017; Rost, 2016; Staarman et al., 2005).  (See Table 2.)

Table 2: Conversational Strategies and Sample Prompts

Once introduced and with training, student conversations will develop into more elaborate and satisfying exchanges:

Student A: Why do you think is the main theme of the story

Student B: I think the main theme is courage. The story teaches us about courage.

Student A: Can you elaborate? What makes you think that?

Student B: Well, I think Marco’s decision to go back and confront his father took a lot of courage.

Student A: Yeah, going back took courage. I see what you mean. But what do you mean by “confront his father”? Can you be more specific?

Shifting to this type of academic discourse is not simply a behavioral adjustment. Teacher and students need a shared understanding of the underlying psychology in order to implement this approach. Most students, irrespective of cultural background, tend to be reticent and deferential in conversations, particularly younger learners. However, in developing academic listening skills of probing for common ground and defining points of view, it is essential that students push beyond their natural tendenciesfor agreeing or reaching a quick consensus and actively look for points of “respectful disagreement” with their classmates.

Part of this shared understanding is that there is an essential affective element in successful academic conversations. This element is what may be called “positive regard,” a psychotherapeutic term grounded in listening (and grounded in the work of Carl Rogers), which means acknowledging and accepting each speaker’s contribution (Rogers, 1965). Positive regard is a foundation of both speaking and listening “authenticity,” a sense that all participants are communicating on a deep, personal level. This mindset can be encouraged through listening without judgement to each other’s ideas, supporting each other’s efforts to learn, and actively seeking out alternate points of view. Teachers assist through modeling and monitoring of positive conversational interaction in order to promote not only “higher level” academic conversations, but also improved well-being among learners (Singer, 2018).

Table 3   Summary: Teaching Approach Essentials for Academic Conversations