Structured Wait Time

I am a second grade teacher that serves in a high English as a Second Language (ESL) demographic. I have 20 students and 16 of my 20 students are English Language Learners (ELLs).

One of the struggles I have encountered in the classroom is student participation. Most teacher information promotes the act of using random selection; all 20 students' names are on Popsicle sticks and I randomly select from a pencil box when I need students to answer questions. This strategy is meant to keep students on their toes and encourage the teacher to select anyone in the classroom, rather than sticking with students that love to answer or showing preference to certain students.

Wait time is another huge component in teaching. Teachers have been advised to count to 8 or 10 in order to give students time to think about what they want to say before giving an answer to a specific question.

Problem: What happens if your student doesn't need wait time? Will wait time provide an answer to a student that doesn't know the information? Will wait time give a Spanish speaking student the language that is needed to answer the question?

I attended an English Language Development (ELD) over the weekend, and left with many ideas that I have already incorporated into my primary classroom. Dr. Jill Hamilton-Bunch of Point Loma University suggested that instead of giving students more wait time ask the following question:

Do you need more time, language, or information?

Time: If the student selects time give them eight seconds to contemplate their answer.

Language: If the student selects language it is because they know the answer but are struggling to form it correctly using the English language. Provide the student with a sentence frame. Sentence frames I've developed for my classroom and use on an ongoing basis are as follows:

I can explain that ____ and ____ are synonyms because they are words that mean the same thing.

A ____ has ____ faces, ____ edges, and ____ vertices.

The word _____ is a noun because it is a _______ (person, place, thing).

I try to have my sentence frames visible and on all teacher created documents.

Information: If the student selects information it is because they do not understand the question and they might not know the answer! If you are reviewing nouns and verbs and you pose the question, "What is a noun?" and Student B says they need more information, simply reply with, "A noun is a person, a place, or a thing". Ask the question again. One participant at this training suggested that this is force feeding information to students. On the other hand, Dr. Hamilton-Bunch believes that this allows the teacher to notate that Student B doesn't know the info and more instruction is necessary. Plus, there is nothing wrong about supplying a student with more information. It's information they need to know. You can only hold students accountable for the information that you teach and continue to spiral (continuous review) throughout your lessons.

I immediately began using this strategy in my class on Monday and I am pleased with the results. "I don't know" is no longer an acceptable answer if it is not coupled with "I need more information".

What new strategies have you used in the classroom?