Developing Young Learners’ Talk and Thinking Skills for Group Discussions

This chapter underscores the importance of oracy as the use of listening and speaking skills for communication and interaction, cognitive development and learning. It argues that oracy language activities need to go beyond developing fluency, something that language textbooks tend to prioritize. Instead, teachers should also try to develop specific oracy skills such as discussion skills that support more complex oral language use and thinking. It explains why it is important for L2 young learners to learn to discuss effectively, particularly when the language they are learning is also the medium of instruction in schools. The chapter distinguishes three types of small group activities that teachers can plan for developing discussion skills. The differences between the quality of talk and thinking during group discussion activities are explained in terms of two kinds of talk: exploratory talk and cumulative talk. The chapter presents speaking and listening skills as well as language expressions that learners need to learn for exploring ideas during discussions and suggest samples of discussion prompts that teachers can use. While this chapter is aimed mainly at teaching older L2 learners (ages 10–12), it also suggests how younger learners (ages 6–9) may benefit from learning how to discuss by using appropriate content for their discussions. It concludes with principles for developing young learners’ oracy and thinking skills through small group discussions and illustrates each one with an example of teacher instruction that can help students understand the process and the value of learning to discuss with others.