Im Just A Teacher So What Do I Know

Dr. Tharp reminds us the four elements of language are reading, writing, speaking, and listening. He states that these are the most crucial developmental tasks of child development. The second CREDE standard instructs teachers to develop students' competence in the language and literacy of instruction throughout all instructional activities. Dr. Tharp presents the fact that teachers talk 92% of the time and students usually talk 8%. This is something that must be changed if we want to see our students excelling in the four areas of language. If language is going to be developed in the classroom then students must be given more opportunities to read, write, speak, and listen in all subject areas.

A strategy that can help master this standard is strategy 15, Practicing Verbal Interaction. The conversation role-play technique is clever way of having students work on the four elements of language while also incorporating group work into the curriculum. This conversation activity can be implemented into any subject area. This would also be an excellent way of getting students to engage in more talking while giving the teacher more time to be the listener.