Instructional Conversation

Instructional conversation is a form of a discussion-based lesson that develops students’ conceptual and linguistic skills through guided discourse where all students are held accountable for participation (Goldsmith, 2013). Students engage in scaffolded exchanges with their peers and the instructor to communicate their personal understandings and negotiate the meaning of content on various levels. This use of student conversations supports the students’ development of academic language and vocabulary. Thinking and the abilities to form, express, and exchange ideas are best taught through dialogue, questioning, and sharing ideas and knowledge. On the surface, a good instructional conversation might appear as "simply" an excellent discussion conducted by a teacher and a group of students. In the Instructional Conversation (IC), the teacher listens carefully, makes guesses about the intended meaning, and adjusts responses to assist students’ efforts--just as in graduate seminars, or between mothers and toddlers. Here the teacher relates formal, school knowledge to the student’s individual, family, and community knowledge. They focus on an idea or students. The teacher encourages the expression of students' own ideas, builds upon information students provide and experiences they have had, and guides students to increasingly sophisticated levels of understanding. The Instructional Conversation provides opportunities for the development of the languages of instruction and subject matter. IC is a supportive and collaborative event that builds inter-subjectivity and a sense of community.

 

This concept may appear to be a paradox; instruction implies authority and planning, while conversation implies equality and responsiveness. Nevertheless, the instructional conversation is based on assumptions that are fundamentally different from those of traditional lessons. Teachers, who use it, like parents in natural teaching, assume that the student has something to say beyond the known answers in the head of the adult. The adult listens carefully, makes guesses about the intended meaning, and adjusts responses to assist the student’s efforts — in other words, engages in conversation. Such conversation reveals the knowledge, skills, and values - the culture — of the learner, enabling the teacher to contextualize teaching to fit the learner’s experience base. These discussion-based lessons geared toward creating opportunities for students' conceptual and linguistic development. By providing students with opportunities to engage in interactions that promote analysis, reflection, and critical thinking, instructional conversations suggest a way to help redress the imbalance of a curriculum that is heavily weighted toward skills and knowledge acquisition.