Mod 9 Discussion: Oral Language Support in My Classroom

The principles of academic discourse I would emphasize are active listening, the usage of examples to back up claims, respectful disagreement, and building on others' ideas. In particular, I would aim at teaching my students how to present their arguments elaborately rather than resorting to giving one-word answers.

For this purpose, I would provide students with prompts and sentence frames, especially when dealing with ELLs or shy participants. For instance, students could say such things as "I agree/disagree with ____ because...," "The text indicates that...," or "Also, there is an example of...," thus facilitating a more structured participation in discussions.

The aforementioned approach would be implemented both in partner work and small-group discussions as well as class discussions. Gradually, I would decrease the amount of scaffolding provided. This is likely to be efficient since it provides the participants with some kind of structure but allows engaging in dialogue at the same time.