Speaker Chooses

This is such a simple tweak to improve dialogue in your classroom. Instead of the teacher always choosing the next person to speak, ask the children to do it sometimes.

A Year 5 teacher recently told me about trying Speaker Chooses for the first time. Suddenly the children started focusing on each other in a way they normally didn’t. She was amazed to see the quality of listening dramatically improve.

I find that saying a phrase such as ‘Pass it on’ or ‘Over to you’ can help with managing the talk; alternatively a non-verbal cue can work well.

If you do P4C you may have already allowed children to own the dialogue through Speaker Chooses. I urge you to try it in other lessons.