My Students Won't Stop Talking
Hi friends! I hope you are well, I hope you are rested. Today we’re talking about the common situation - when students won’t stop talking. My name is Victoria Boler and this is episode 61 of Elemental Conversations.
This topic came from a colleague on Instagram and they asked for a conversation around “Chatty Kathys and how to help students regain focus”
So today we’re going to dive into one of the most common annoyances for so many of us. They won’t stop talking. They can’t seem to focus. It’s like I’m trying to teach a classroom of squirrels.
Let’s frame this with a few core (elemental) questions. What are developmentally appropriate and situationally appropriate expectations for talking? How are our lessons structured to support students’ motivation and focus? What are some effective strategic actions we can take in the moment - or preferably, even before the moment?
The more I talk, the more my students talk. Am I saying something worth listening to?
You can’t talk and sing at the same time. What action should they do instead of talking?
When Do Students Talk?
During transitions
When they’re bored
When they’re interested
When they’re processing something
Basically all the time
Developmentally-Appropriate & Situationally-Appropriate
Why do students talk? If we consider behavior to be a window into a deeper need, we can add more context to the story.
I had this conversation with one of my nephews and I asked him if he gets in trouble for talking in class. And he does sometimes. And what he told me about it is that he wishes he could talk to everyone in his class all the time. He’s a very friendly and social kid - always has been.
Students talk because they are human. Humans are social. There is an appropriate developmental need to talk. If we put a social human in a room with 25 of their friends, the most natural thing in the world they will do is talk to their friends.
What are students telling me with their behavior? They might be telling me that my pacing is off. They might be telling me that they’re having a hard time processing something that happened outside of class. They might be telling me their teacher had them taking an hour long test right before this, and then they weren’t allowed to talk in the hallway, and they just need some time to talk! They might be telling me they can’t focus because a situation at home kept them up all night. This is what people mean with the phrase, “behavior is a window”
Not everything that is developmentally appropriate is situationally appropriate. But how we frame this problem will impact how we feel about the problem. I am much less frustrated by talking when I see that it is a deeply human need that a child has for social connection. When I’m less frustrated I have more room for patience and optimism. And this is a frame of mind that allows me to be more creative. Creativity thrives on optimism. I’m in a better position to solve the problem when I can approach it without anger.
I don’t mean to say that it’s not a problem when students talk at the wrong times. It certainly is. And it’s one of the things that makes us feel just so darn tired and depleted and frustrated at the end of the day.
Who is Actually Doing the Talking?
This might be a good time to bring up an uncomfortable truth - who is actually doing the talking during class time?
Episode 33 - How Do Music Teachers Spend their Class Time?
We can see in research over and over and over again that teachers talk much more than students - even when we think we don’t. That’s the interesting part.
I’ve videoed myself teaching and was shocked at how much I talk compared to students! Even as I was bragging to parents about how student-centered the class was, it seemed like every time I skipped anywhere in the video I was still talking.
This might be a case of getting rid of the plank in our own eye.
This is actually a good thing. If we’re the ones doing the most talking, that puts us in control of the solution. Because what we’ll talk about in a moment is that most of the time, the reason we talk so much is that we haven’t quite ironed out process teaching.
What We Can Do
So let’s talk about some concrete ways to help redirect students by focusing on the behavior we can control - our own.
The nice thing about the reality of students talking is that when we recognize our role, we have more control over what to do. If the problem is “kids these days,” there’s not much we can do. However, when our expectations are appropriate and we’ve thought through how we are going to frame the activities and guide students through them intentionally, we suddenly see how much the ball is actually in our court here.
Two Core Truths of Students Talking:
The more I talk, the more my students talk. Am I saying something worth listening to?
You can’t talk and sing at the same time. What action should they do instead of talking?
These are the golden rule of students talking. The more we talk, the more they talk. You can’t talk and sing at the same time. When there is any space at all to talk…… they will talk. So let’s go back to those reasons students talk and proactively address how to steer the lesson a different direction
Students Talk During Transitions
This one is huge!
If there is one thing we can do to help students stay focused, it’s thinking through transitions. When will students be moving from one location to another? We can absolutely expect talking. When do students need to set up instruments or other classroom materials? There will be talking here. When will students get ready to play a game? Again. Talking.
Often, we can find ourselves taking longer than we expected to set up games, pass out instruments, and move between songs. Thoughtful transitions help us prepare for where the lesson may get stuck, and how we’ll help keep the pacing upbeat.
All of these are transitions.
I’ll link a video all about music transitions that gives more specific pathways to try, but if you need something very simple and effective, my favorite transition is to have students sing while they ______. Move to line up, sing while you show you’re ready for an instrument, sing while you find a partner, sing sing sing. Whatever activity you were doing before the transition, keep doing the same activity.
One note here - when you do this, there will be students who don’t sing, especially at first. That’s ok because all musicians have to practice skills to get better at them. So no one is in trouble when I say to sing as you line up and four kids sprint to line up without singing. We just go back and do it again. This circles back to expectations. I expect that all musicians need practice to develop skills.
Another very quick drag-and-drop transition to try is asking students to echo directions - “when you get to the drums” (“when I get to the drums”) “Your hands go on your head” (“my hands go on my head”)
Along those lines, especially for older students you can ask them to echo a body percussion rhythm as they move. They’ll stand still when they listen and move when they’re playing. Depending on how long you’ve been at your campus and how much creative experience students have, I also love to ask students to improvise a rhythm as they move. I keep a steady beat on a hand drum and students just move and play to the new location.
Again, transitions are huge opportunities for students to talk and for the lesson to go off the rails! Thinking through how we will guide students from one musical part of the lesson to the other will save us so much headache.
Recap: Students talk during transitions. Have a few transitions in your back pocket like asking students sing the song, echo directions, or play body percussion as they move.
Students Talk When They’re Bored
If our pacing or our processes are off, students will let us know! If our lesson material is not interesting or relevant, students will let us know! Behavior is a window.
Let’s talk about pacing and processing. If students have to wait on us to get our process figured out, they are absolutely going to talk.
Pacing:
When our lessons drag on too long with any particular activity, students will let us know by talking. Most of the time in lessons that I’ve given and I’ve gotten to watch other colleagues give, when students talk it’s because the pacing is too slow.
I am kind of a stickler when it comes to pacing. I write in the side of my lesson plan what time an activity needs to start and what time it needs to end. The reason is not that those times are etched in stone and I need to follow the lesson plan instead of following students’ interests and needs. It’s actually the opposite. When I can make an informed decision about how long students will likely be engaged in a task, again from a child-development and appropriate expectations standpoint, I am much more likely to keep the lesson moving. Because I have to remember what an appropriate pacing flow is for me is going to be WAY longer than what’s appropriate for students. Even if I feel like an activity has a lot more meat in it, a lot more we can do, to students it feels like the activity has gone on for an eternity. And what will they do when they’re bored and they need to get up and move? They talk.
When we think through our pacing, we can cut our losses on a particular activity and move on to the next thing if something isn’t working. We don’t have to drag the activity out and beat it into the ground. We can move onto the next activity and always leave students wanting more.
Processing:
Let’s imagine I’m giving directions for an activity. Here’s an example of something I can say to guarantee students will talk….. “OK everyone settle down. This is a really fun song I think you’re going to like. Let’s see, how should we do this… OK…. shhhh…. you’re still talking….. ok I need, no wait… I won’t start until you’re quiet….”
Now let’s imagine that I do this instead. Students are talking. Without saying anything I do a few body percussion patterns in a row and students echo. While this is happening I’m smiling and making eye contact with some students still finishing up their conversations. I might also change my location in the room to be a bit closer to those students. Then I click to the next slide on my lesson board where I have short, actionable directions and a CTA (call to action) at the end. The CTA might be “Look at me with one eye open and one eye closed when you’ve read these directions.” “Look at me with ____a surprised face, etc.__ when you’ve read these directions” “Sit down when you’ve read the directions.”
The difference between the two is that in one example I hadn’t thought through how I’m going to process the game. And between the cracks as I was trying to figure it out, students were talking and that leaves me feeling more and more flustered and frustrated. In the second example I had thought through how I wanted to explain the first steps of the activity, and I wasn’t saying anything at all.
I know this takes extra time before the lesson to think through processes.
One of the key questions from the beginning was, “Am I saying something worth listening to?”
Interest:
We all like to learn about things that are interesting! When our lessons feel relevant to students, they’re more likely to be engaged and on board with the learning. And the opposite is true as well. If students aren’t interested in the materials we bring to class, they’ll let us know by talking.
This is one of the principles of Universal Design for Learning under the category of Multiple Means of Engagement. I have a blog post about this that I’ll link in the show notes.
Recap: Students talk when they’re bored. We can make changes proactively by thinking through our lesson pacing and our lesson processing, and by creating lessons that students are naturally interested in.
Students Talk When They’re Interested & Processing
Paradoxically, I’m also about to tell you students talk when there’s something interesting to talk about. I know. It feels like we can’t win!
But what I want to offer here is that students talking about something they’re interested in is a very different tone than students talking because they’re bored. To me this feels like a very different energy - it’s more focused and less scattered. This is actually the kind of talking that we want to hear in the lesson!
So the question to me when I consider this type of talking is “When do I want students to talk?” When is it appropriate, or preferable, or necessary for students to talk? Here are some examples of situations where I can take students’ natural inclination to talk, and I can help them guide it to a specific academic area.
Let’s imagine students are hearing a song for the first time. I’ll sing the song while we all pat a steady beat, and then I’ll ask students to turn to a shoulder partner and tell them something they notice about the song, and give me a thumbs up when they’re done. I’ll give a few seconds, then sing the song again and ask them to tell someone else what they notice. I’ll give a few seconds, then ask students to listen for how many times I sing x word, or what the highest word is, etc. and then sing the song again. And we’ll keep going like that for a few more rounds of the song.
The key here is that I’m asking students to talk, but I’m choosing what I want them to talk about, and I’m giving them many different opportunities to talk to multiple people in the class. I also have a CTA, a call to action, in there so it’s not “talk to your neighbor for as long as you want…” As more students give me a thumbs up the few stragglers will feel a sense of urgency to finish up as well.
I might also ask students to talk about something specific while they transition to something else. I’ll put a question on the board and ask students to talk about the topic as they walk to line up, or as they wait for me to give them an instrument, or something along those lines. This can be a great time to review! “Tell your neighbor how Mrs. Boler will know you’re ready for an instrument” “Tell a musician three things we did today in class”
Notice here that students are talking, but they’re talking about something specific.
We won’t go into this topic in depth here, but group work is another great example of when it’s absolutely necessary for students to talk in order to get things done. If students are working on a rhythmic building block arrangement, they’ll absolutely need to talk in order to create their idea!
Recap: Students talk when they’re interested. Build in time for students to think out loud
Quick Wins:
Write down directions
Talk quieter
Use a silly voice
Use interactive speaking (echoing, call and response, etc.)
Model, don’t speak
Practice the attention signal before its chaotic
Use a consistent opening routine
How Do I Want to Spend My Energy?
I read a Facebook comment recently about classroom management, and it was something to the effect of “I don’t like the person I turn into when my students won’t stop talking.” And if I had to guess, I would say most of us can identify with that statement. We want to view ourselves as competent, energetic, effective teachers. But when we aren’t prepared for how much students talk, we turn into frustrated, depleted, impatient teachers.
All the strategies we talked about today - thinking through transitions and processing, making sure our pacing is appropriate, etc. - All those strategies take work ahead of the actual lesson time. Sometimes we might not feel like taking the time to think through the process part of the lesson. We just want to jot down the song we’ll use and wing it.
But there’s a trade off. With the knowledge that students talking is both developmentally appropriate and inevitable, how do we want to spend our energy? We can be proactive, or we can be reactive.
Read More:
If you’d like to read more, there are two books I’ll link to in the show notes that have been helpful to me when I think about this topic.
We’ve talked about a lot today! Hopefully we can see how much control we have over our own behavior, and how taking ownership for our leadership of the classroom is the most effective step we can take toward less talking and more focus. Taking ownership for our own leadership takes time on the front end, but it saves us so much energy. Alright friends. Take care. I wish you all the best. Happy teaching.
