Strategy 30: Developing Community

for Classroom Conversations

The first thing that teachers must do to

promote academic conversations is to
create a classroom community in which
all students feel welcome and each
student is encouraged to share his or her
promising ideas. (Michaels et al., 2007).
 Teachers should model routines
and norms for thoughtful
conversation and communicate
THEORY AND/OR expectations to students.

RESEARCH of
supportive classroom setting,
UNDERLYING THE ELLs and FEP learners develop
discourse norms, allowing
STRATEGY students from diverse
backgrounds to listen, build on
each other’s ideas, and
participate in complex
deliberative practices.
 IMPLEMENTING THE
STRATEGY
Arrange the classroom so that students can
easily engage in academic conversations:
Build community and foster social
interaction, implement grade-appropriate
activities like Getting to Know You Bingo,
Find Someone Who, and student-to-student
interviewing.
Model wait time to show students how
long 20 to 30 seconds is. Wait time in a
classroom is extremely useful to ELLs at
all levels.
Model conversations explicitly to
ensure students of all proficiency
levels have language structures that
enable participation, including
language forms that extend
conversation and clarify questions.
Display conversation extension forms
(What do you mean by…? Can you say
more about…? Could you please
explain…?) in a prominent place in the
room.
 3 Activities to Build Community Through
Social Conversations
1. Getting To Know You Bingo – is a game
that encourages students to learn about each other
by creating bingo cards.
3. Personal Interviews – Personal
interviews are an effective way for students
to learn about each other, generate
2. Find Someone Who – As a variation to Getting to conversation, and practice language forms.
Know You Bingo, students can use teacher-made
charts to Find Someone Who has two brothers or
likes to play the violin, eat pizza, play baseball, and
so on.
Thank you