We need to talk about talk

Why Ben Newmark has annoyed me. (Not really.)

A mime artist teaching a class

A shameless attempt to gain sympathy

As I have mentioned in the preamble to this post, I have been ill since before Christmas. At one point, I did not even feel like blogging and stayed away from my computer¹. Now, however, my main problem is that I can hardly speak. My voice is far too croaky to teach. Nevertheless, I am feeling well in most other respects. This has caused me to think about how much I need my voice in good working order to teach. A teacher’s voice is a tool of the trade. Teachers talk a lot. Not that long ago, teachers were condemned for speaking “too much” in lessons. In practice, that was usually just code for condemning any kind of direct instruction, no matter how interactive, in favour of discovery learning, or group discussions. However, over time I have found myself watching teachers who perhaps could legitimately be criticised for talking “too much”. Or maybe that’s not the problem. It’s no help to tell teachers “don’t talk too much”. That’s a tautology; that’s what “too much” means. But should we speak less? The issue is rarely the quantity of talking; it’s more that some talk is unnecessary, or even counterproductive.

Adam Boxer’s recent blog post (and Ben Newmark’s response to it)

Two recent blog posts have staked out a position on what talk teachers should just cut out.

In a post entitled “Filling the silence MCA2”², Adam Boxer argues against talking to the class while they are working:

Teachers sometimes seem to want to fill the void with noise. In our case, Mr B is at least giving feedback based on what he has seen, but all too often teachers are just repeating instructions or saying things that are completely non-substantive (“this is a great way to prepare for our exams,” “think really hard about what you are writing,” “make sure to write as much as you can”), and I worry that it could just be a discomfort with the fact that there is quiet in a room.

This last part is an observation I have sometimes made about lessons (usually my own).

Adam gives the following advice:

When students are working quietly
Avoid disturbing them
By refraining from making non-essential group-level announcements

Ben Newmark then wrote a blog post, “Stop banging on”. It begins:

Adam Boxer has annoyed me.

His most recent blog post unpicks the issues caused by unwise group level announcements and I found it challenging.

A lot of what he identified as problems is present in my teaching, and it made me see there are issues I didn’t know I had.

That’s annoying because it requires a response.³  

Ben gives a good number of reasons why much of what teachers say might be counterproductive. He suggests that repeated instructions may have less authority. He worries about devaluing the really important advice to pupils through an excess of unimportant utterances. Like Adam, he makes a good case for cutting out the excess verbiage. This advice seems to be something I could be very grateful for if I am still a bit croaky when I return to work. However, I think he has said things I disagree with or, at the very least, can find exceptions to. That’s annoying delightful because it requires a response.

I will start my defence of pointless talk with an apparently random digression

Many years ago, in one of the worst schools I have ever worked in (referred to as “Stafford Green” in my old blog posts), my Head of Department gave me the following advice after an observation:

“Stand at the back monitoring them as they work, so they can’t see who you are watching”.

The intention was that if pupils feared they were being watched, they would behave better. I followed the advice in my next lesson, but it was hopeless. The main effect of this strategy was that a lot of the best-behaved pupils in the class, when they should have been working, were twisting their heads around in uncomfortable ways to see what I was doing at the back of the room. I gave up on this particular strategy after one lesson. My head of department, who had only been teaching for the same length of time as I had, later admonished me for not taking her advice.

However, to be fair to her, over many years since I have seen many good teachers use this strategy successfully. I have even used it myself a few times. So why does it sometimes work, and sometimes prove completely counterproductive? The difference is the class. The reason my class at that terrible school kept turning around was that, although the behaviour for that particular class was relatively good, many of them did not feel safe when I was not watching the class for signs of trouble. They were turning around to see if I was looking out for them. The usefulness of the advice to watch from the back, like most behaviour advice for classroom teachers, depends on the context. Some classes will work best when they know they are under constant surveillance. The worst offenders will cause trouble if they suspect they are not being watched. Standing at the front and staring at the class makes a huge difference. Other classes will respond best to uncertainty about being caught. Those tempted to mess around want a guarantee they will get away with it, rather than just a balance of probability. For them, standing at the back might work well. Other classes, will respond best to a teacher circulating. The boring answer to the question of how best to monitor the class is: it depends.

The case for blathering on in lessons

In the same way, seemingly excessive teacher talk in lessons, even if it seems potentially off-putting, might pay off with some classes. Some classes respond to silence by talking. Some classes need to be reminded every thirty seconds of what they are supposed to be doing. Some classes need to be reminded that there is a teacher in the room (perhaps those same classes who can’t cope when you stand at the back). In all these cases, the endless jabbering of th

e teacher may be of net benefit. Perhaps the classes that are like this are far from ideal. Perhaps it’s one of those strategies teachers are ashamed to admit they use; I don’t use it myself. Nevertheless, I think that talking, even in ways that appear unproductive, works well for some teachers with some classes, and it is something a teacher should be fully entitled to do.

I suppose saying “it depends” and calling for autonomy can seem a bit of a cop-out in debates about how best to teach. I am certainly not going to fall into the trap of claiming that I am arguing for nuance or expressing my disappointment at Adam and Ben’s unnuanced opinions. At best, I am arguing for flexibility. And there is an important aspect of Ben’s post that I think undermines my line of argument. While castigating himself for talking unnecessarily in lessons, Ben twice refers to his tendency to interrupt the work as a habit. I think that’s key. I am arguing for adapting to the class and for autonomy, but if you do something in your teaching that is a habit that you did not choose to develop, then you aren’t adapting to the class, and you are not truly autonomous. So perhaps the important thing here is not to avoid any particular quantity or type of talking, but to avoid doing anything (including talking) in your teaching that’s only there because it’s a habit.

1. If you were a paid subscriber during that time, you should have had a week added to your subscription to make up for this. Please let me know if this hasn’t happened.

2. MCA stands for “Most Common Actions”.

3. Ben admits later that “it’s not really true I’m cross with Adam Boxer.”