教與學 - Tactics to Keep Students Talking 2013-09-13

New semester has started and all of us are very busy with our preparations for the new semester. Engaging students in class is always not an easy task and some of the suggestions given in the following may inspire us to think more about our "Tactics to Keep Students Talking".

• Build rapport with students
• Bring students' outside comments into class and invite students to voice out their ideas in class again
• Use non-verbal cues to encourage participation (e.g. smile expectantly & maintain eye contact)
• Draw all students into discussion (e.g. ask whether other students agree with what has just been said or not)
• Give quiet students special encouragement (e.g. arrange small group discussions, assign a small specific task to the quiet student for the next class, stand or sit next to someone who has not contributed, etc.)
• Discourage students who monopolize the discussion (e.g. break the large class into small groups, restate that you want more students to response, & limit the time for each contribution)
• Correct wrong answers tactfully (e.g. say something positive first, and then provide follow-up questions, and tell the student the answer is "not quite" but "keep trying")
• Do reward but do not grade student participation at once (e.g. suggest to make use of verbal praise to good points, give written notes to students, issue recognition tickets either to the individuals or the small groups)

Besides the "Tactics to Keep Students Talking", general strategies and tactics to increase student participation are also covered in some online articles. If you are interested and want to explore more, please click here for further details.

Source: Davis, B. G. (1993). Tools for teaching: Encouraging student participation in discussion. Jossey-Bass Publishers: San Francisco.