Students in the Elementary School Classroom Have Few Opportunities for Authentic Conversation
Description of the Community
The community is a small urban city located in the Delta area of Mississippi. The area in Mississippi is the fifth largest city in the state and located in Washington County. The school that will be researched is a predominately black elementary school in grades 1-5. The school has 402 students with a student-teacher ratio of 17 to 1. The school is performing below average and is in need of academic improvement. The city has two school districts, and is the largest school district in in this small urban city in Mississippi (Mississippi Department of Education, 2019).
The majority of the students attending this school are performing below average with only 15% percent of the students performing proficient in reading and 23% proficient in Math. Teachers provide opportunities for authentic conversation opportunities for children to improve in all subjects for positive academic outcomes. However, only the elementary group from this school explores the fact that they have few opportunities for authentic conversation.
Work Setting
The school conveys tasks to teachers with the enormous duty of communicating and promoting authentic conversation among the students. The fact that it is a public and, therefore, more affordable institution makes the school the ideal choice for the communities surrounding it. The black communities that frequent the school come from families that are not well-to-do, and the facilities at the school and their overstretched nature point to this. The motivation in the school is also low as the vast majority battles with problems at home that may distract them from classwork and vital developments such as the ability to converse. The teacher and facilitator, therefore, must find ways of engaging such students and classrooms despite their disengagement to promote intellectual engagement.
Writer’s Role
Despite the school’s dire situation, the writer’s role is to provide opportunities for students at the elementary level to benefit from an improvement in communication and a boost in their confidence through availing opportunities for them to engage in authentic conversation. Schussler (2009) explains that authentic conversation can only begin when the teacher creates an environment that facilitates intellectual engagement while also convincing them that opportunities exist for them to succeed, that they can learn through various flexible avenues, and that their teachers respect them as learners. They make efforts to provide both learning and participation. Additionally, the students warm up to authentic conversation when the teacher uses exciting instructional techniques, provides academic help, and shows that the students’ learning is relevant.
Creating the opportunity for students to utilize alternative teaching techniques provides students with various authentic language experiences in the classroom. School districts are asking teachers to to come up with strategies for learning without utilizing the typical pen and pencil. Creating a weekly skype to students who speak another language for instance, would lead to both groups learning one another’s language more quickly and in a fun way. Students are able to engage and make a connection with others in the classroom. Students have the opportunity to make a connection with others to learn and understand the cultures of others. Encouraging children at the elementary level to talk and examining the effects helps one to analyze how effective their learning is and come up with ways to enhance their improved status further or stop habits that repress their learning. Encouraging talk in elementary schools not only taps into the social functions of language but the cognitive ones as well and so the child improves continuously and, unlike before, becomes hopeful of their future.
Problem Statement
The problem to be solved in this research project is that students in the elementary school classroom have limited opportunities for authentic conversation.
Problem Description
Authentic conversation allows learners to present honest ideas regarding what they think or feel. In such conversations, students can easily identify areas in which they think their teachers do not adequately explain concepts or ideas incorporated in the class course or textbook (Latham & Ewing, 2018). Often, authentic conversations also create room for learners to question ideas that have newly been introduced to them. In such cases, they are able to understand better especially because they get an opportunity to receive further explanations. In other cases, students get opportunities to ask for clarification, which also enhances the understanding, besides learners also get the opportunity to enhance their conversation and communication skills as they try to make others understand them (Hadar & Brody, 2016). Their language use also improves during such sessions. The absence of authentic conversations means that learners do not express themselves and that their teachers do not know areas that pose major challenges to the students. Also, the learners experience less involvement in the learning process, which often reduces the motivation they have to engage in passive learning.
Learners in the selected area do not get enough opportunities to have conversations with their teachers or fellow students. Also, the students do not engage in academic conversations with each other, which means that their communication sessions do not have any impact on their classroom understanding or communication skills. With such limited opportunities for the students to communicate honestly and formally, they find it difficult to enhance their communication skills (Johnson, 2017). More importantly, learners fail to get platforms that help them engage in intensive analysis of classroom materials, which has a significant negative impact on their learning interest. Most learners do not have the urge to attend school and often embrace opportunities that allow them not to attend school or certain classrooms. In such cases, the performance of the learners is affected since they find it difficult to engage in meaningful conversations with ease. Also, they are unable to identify areas in the course where they need further explaining. With such issues, the learners are in a way prevented from exploiting their full potential in subjects that they would otherwise be excelling in. In such cases, the students are limited from reaching their best academic performance levels.
Furthermore, the teachers fail to get an opportunity to generate a better understanding of their learners. In such cases, the students are exposed o unsuitable teaching methods, which limit the possibility that they may understand the concepts introduced in classroom sessions. For instance, without the knowledge of where they do wrong in the teaching process, teachers continue using ineffective methods to convey learning concepts. Further, it becomes impossible to develop an idea of what the students would prefer during classes. Eventually, the use of ineffective teaching methods results in poor performance and neglects student needs.
Overall, the unavailability of opportunities to engage in authentic conversations reduces the ability of learners to perform well in their academics. It also reduces the motivation they have to engage in learning processes. The presence of authentic conversations helps students to convey messages related to what they prefer to be included in the teaching process and what they think should be eliminated. In such cases, the learners choose to teach methods that would increase their motivation to learn and generate better understanding as well as performance. In such cases, students receive collaborative tasks that enhance their use of academic language and enhance understanding of classroom concepts.
References
Boyd, M. P., & Galda, L. (2011). Real talk in elementary classrooms: Effective oral language practice. Guilford Press.
Hadar, L. L., & Brody, D. L. (2016). Talk about student learning: Promoting professional growth among teacher educators. Teaching and teacher education, 59, 101-114.
Johnson, E. M. (2017). Balancing comprehension and conversation: How elementary teachers manage multiple purposes for text discussions. Teaching and Teacher Education, 66, 325-337.
Latham, G., & Ewing, R. (2018). Conversation around lingering questions and authentic assessment. In Generative Conversations for Creative Learning (pp. 207-218). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Mississippi Department of Education. (2019). Greenville Public School District. Retrieved from http://www.mde.k12.ms.us
Schussler, D. L. (2009). Beyond content: How teachers manage classrooms to facilitate intellectual engagement for disengaged students. Theory Into Practice, 48(2), 114-121.
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