Theory | CLASE

Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners:
The Instructional Conversational Model

Theoretical Underpinnings

Introduction: What is the Instructional Conversation?

The intervention called Instructional Conversation is technically defined as a regularly-scheduled teacher-led event with three to seven students, lasting about twenty minutes, with a clear instructional goal. The teacher leads through topic control, and thus the event is Instructional. But the ordinary courtesies and shared-regulations characteristic of Conversation apply (e.g., Nofsinger, 1991). That is, student-participants regulate their own speaking turns, everyone participates, and the teacher speaks no more than 50% in either time or turns. The Instructional Conversation (IC) allows for close monitoring by the teacher of student development of comprehension and language expression. Simultaneously IC allows for close assistance by the teacher at the level needed by ELL individual speakers or groups. The IC event’s capacity for this assessment and assistance is in marked contrast to whole-class “discussions”, events well known for teacher domination and participation by only the most able and verbal students (Cazden, 2001).

The Instructional Conversation does not exist in a vacuum. In terms of effective professional development and effective implementation of the IC model, it is useful to consider that the the IC was developed as a “final stage” of a group of pedagogical conditions called the Five Standards for Effective Pedagogy. These include:

Standard I: Teachers and Students Producing Together (Joint Productive Activity). Facilitate learning through joint productive activity between teacher and students.
Standard II: Developing Language and Literacy Across the Curriculum (Language & Literacy Development). Develop competence in the language(s) of instruction (English) and of the academic disciplines (e.g., science and mathematics) throughout the day.
Standard III: Making Meaning—Connecting School to Students’ Lives (Contextualization). Embed curricular instruction in the interests, experiences and skills of students’ families and communities.
Standard IV: Teaching Complex Thinking. Consistently challenge students toward their next level of cognitive complexity.
Standard V: Teaching Through Instructional Conversation.

The Standards are obviously a mix of emphases, some involving instructional goals, some interactional descriptions, and some curricular considerations. What is important to note is that the Instructional Conversation is designed to enhance education by unifying instruction to meet the needs of ELL students through a holistic incorporation of all five areas. Specific to the current study are two domains addressed by the IC model: Second Language Proficiency Development (elucidated on Standard II) and the Affective Domain (influenced by Standard III). In order to clearly understand the relationship between these domains, one must first understand the theoretical framework that incorporates them.

Cognitive & Socio-Cultural Theory

The main elements of the IC model assist information processing and socio-cognitive development by promoting metacognitive awareness, language development, contextualization, and concept-matching as well as concept formation, particularly as teachers use students’ cultural background and experiences in everyday teaching. These practices are consistent with cultural historical theory (Vygotsky, 1978, Cole, 1996; Portes & Vadeboncoeur, 2003), especially regarding how higher-order thinking or functions are formed through external assistance that is sensitive to individuals’ learning potential.

Information processing theories of cognition attempt to understand the underlying processes in how people learn (National Research Council, 2000). Information processing theory describes the relationship between problem-solving behaviors, transfer and the corresponding internal processes and structures of the brain (Mayer, 1989; 1996a; 1998; Mayer & Wittrock, 2006; Schraw, 2006; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The focus on how the brain organizes and utilizes information during problem-solving activities, particularly in terms of short- and long-term memory, is most relevant for understanding how ELLs and other struggling students learn and succeed in school.

The criteria we have mentioned thus far- memory, strategy transfer, attention control, metacognition, and inference – are critical cognitive tools for improving academic performance and are targeted through the challenging practices that define this intervention model. In particular, IC teaching employs the primary means of assistance (Tharp & Gallimore, 1989) by which we intend to advance ELLs’ development through practices that include modeling and responsive contingency management to guide ELLs’ comprehension and motivation.

Second Language Proficiency Development

Focus on meaning in second language acquisition is important because acquisition can only take place when learners are participating in real acts of communication and are using language to decode and encode messages (e.g., Long, 1996; Prabhu, 1987; Ellis, 2008). To develop true fluency in a second language, learners must have opportunities to engage in real communication (DeKeyser, 1998) and therefore, instruction needs to ensure that learners focus predominantly on meaning. When learners are engaged in decoding and encoding messages in the context of actual acts of communication, acquisition is likely to take place (Long,1996; Prabhu, 1987). Furthermore, learners must be given the space and time to use language in order to acquire fluency. This requires the opportunity to engage in genuine acts of communication and not only in rote drills (DeKeyser, 1998).

In IC teaching, teacher and students both function as communicators and view the second language as a tool for communicating rather than as an object to be analyzed and studied. These meaning-based activities are more effective for developing grammar, vocabulary and fluency, as well as for developing motivation (Dornyei, 2001) than are standard grammar drills or decontextualized language exercises. Engaging in activities focused on creating meaning is intrinsically motivating for learners and is part of the IC approach as noted above. In IC, the verbalization of student reflections in response to teacher prompts is specifically intended to develop metacognitive skills.

The IC is designed to give the learner the opportunity to dialogue with the instructor about content in an open and responsive forum. This gives the student sufficient language input as well as ample time to practice with the language through real exercises and to connect the content information to their own lives. The IC offers the instructor sufficient time and space to model correct forms and to respond collaboratively, extensively and intensively to the student, offering the corrective feedback theorists argue is necessary for the learner to “notice” the correct forms of language (Krashen, 1985, DeKeyser, 1998) and to develop implicit knowledge which develops naturally out of meaning-focused communication (Ellis,1998).

The Affective Domain

The literature linking student engagement, motivation, self-concept and related aspects help us in defining affective development in general as important in understanding the learner’s internal processes in the teaching and student outcomes link. The IC model draws considerable support from this literature which can be extended to affective development and motivation. For example, student engagement is important in producing learning (Lee & Anderson, 1993, Paris & Paris, 2001; Pintrich et al., 1993). The IC builds on both engagement and motivation to learn based on both how it is structured and processed in everyday activities. In addition to a robust set of research (e.g., Pintrich & Schunk, 2002) on general academic motivation, second language acquisition theory recognizes the importance of affective issues ranging from a proposed “affective filter” (Krashen, 1985) to more nuanced constructs of motivation and language learning (e.g. Dornyei, 2001; Dornyei & Schmidt, 2001; Gardner, Tremblay, & Masgoret, 1997).

When instruction improves student engagement, students’ self-concept and learning generally improve as well, particularly for ELLs. For example, Cummins (2001) suggests that a reciprocal relationship exists between cognitive engagement and identity investment by noting that the more students learn, the more their academic self-concept grows and academically they become more engaged. The IC is particularly effective at accomplishing this goal as it creates an ideal platform for the students to “test” their knowledge in a small “safe” grouping with teacher support.

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Improving the Teaching and Learning of English Language Learners: The Instructional Conversational Model