A couple weeks ago, I shared about how I tried to teach kids to communicate effectively. We talked about the importance of body language, eye contact, and showing understanding. I didn’t want to leave it at that. In this post, I’ll share how I brought their conversational skills to the next level.
Once my students seemed to understand how to listen well, we moved onto the next step: learn how to have a discussion. It’s basically expanding on the “showing understanding” step from before, and then adding a fourth step: Add your own thought. This can also be thought of as a lesson on “How to Agree and Disagree Politely.”
I think this is an essential life skill that every person should work on! Myself included :P. I eventually found a way to do it that was really fun for everyone. Here’s how it went:
Me: So you know how we’ve been working on improving our communication skills?
(Suddenly they all straighten up give me penetrating eye contact :))
Me: Ah yes, I see you remember! Well, today we’re going to take it a step further. It’s good and all to learn to listen well, but you also need to learn how to share your own thoughts well. Now, this doesn’t mean just blabbing on and on and always talking. It also doesn’t mean sitting there just waiting for your chance to say what you want to say and only concentrating on your own thought. I’m going to teach you a polite and courteous way to do it. It’s two steps. First, you SHOW that you were listening, and then you ADD your own thoughts. Again, SHOW your listening, then ADD your own thoughts.
Let me give you an example. Say you’re at a friend’s place and you’re trying to decide what to do. Normally, the conversation might go like this:
Friend: Hey, I got a new board game we could play-
You: OOOH LET’S SHOOT HOOPS!
Friend: So the game is called Sequence-
You: OH LET’S PLAY MINECRAFT
Friend: It’s really fun, you try to get five in a row-
You: Wanna ride bikes?
Friend: -_-
You: ?
You probably can think of a time someone talked over all your ideas like that, right? Did it feel very good? No. You don’t feel like they’re listening or that they care about your ideas, and that’s not a good feeling. Both of the friends here weren’t really showing good listening skills, and I’m guessing they were both just thinking about themselves. Not cool. Now let’s try that conversation again, but this time they can SHOW each other they were listening before ADDING their own thoughts:
Friend: Hey, I got a new board game we could play-
You: Oh, you got a new board game? I was thinking we could shoot some hoops!
Friend: Yeah, hoops could be fun. I also think this board game is fun. It’s called Sequence.
You: It’s called Sequence? Yeah maybe we could play that. I also kind of want to play Minecraft.
Friend: Sure, Minecraft is a good idea too. Sequence is really fun though, it’s a game where you try to get five in a row.
You: That game does sound fun, but I guess I don’t feel like a board game. Do you wanna ride bikes instead?
Friend: Hm, yeah I guess we could do something else that isn’t a board game. I don’t feel like going outside though, so let’s play Minecraft.
You: Okay, cool!
Did that conversation feel different to you guys? What was different?
Student: The friends showed they were listening first, then they said what they wanted to do.
Me: Right. Even though your friend didn’t get to play the board game he wanted to play, at least he knows that you heard him and acknowledged what he said, and that counts for a lot! Imagine if Lily came up to me one day and said, “I think we should take a class field trip to Disneyland!” and I just said, “Nope.”
Doesn’t feel too good, right? But what if she said, “I think we should take a class field trip to Disneyland!” and I said, “I agree that a class trip to Disneyland would be SO FUN! But unfortunately it’s super expensive. Sorry!”
I mean, the answer is still no, but it felt a lot better, right? I showed that I heard her, and then I added more. Even if I’m disagreeing with her thought, it comes off much better because I showed that I heard her first.
Okay, so today, we’re going to practice sharing our thoughts using this structure: 1) Show you understand, then 2) Add your own thoughts. Here are some sentence frames you can use to do that:
Lily says, “I think we should take a class field trip to Disneyland!”
Chrissy replies, “I agree with Lily about Disneyland, and I also think we should go to the beach!”
(I point to the sentence stem as I’m using it)
Daniel says, “So are you saying that we should go to Disneyland AND the beach? Well, I agree that would be fun, but that’s going to be too expensive!”
Kim adds, “Daniel made a good point about cost, but I happen to disagree that it’s TOO expensive, because we can do a fundraiser!”
You can just add the person’s name and then add your own thought after. Let’s try it out. Who wants to have a pretend conversation with me? Okay, Emma. Let’s pretend we’re talking about pets. Feel free to agree or disagree with me, but try to use these sentence stems to show you heard me, and then add your own thought. I’ll go first: I think dogs make better pets than cats. What do you think?
From there, I let the student respond and we have a conversation about it, always following the frame of showing listening then adding thoughts. If the student gets stuck, other classmates are frequently eager to share their thoughts and input, which is great! As we have our pretend conversation, the rest of the class is thinking of their own responses and how they would frame it. Everyone is practicing mentally. Next, I’d open up the conversation to 3 people, and choose another easy topic to debate/discuss, such as “I think Winter is the best season!”
I always pick topics where kids will have strong opinions and can easily relate to. Nothing too academic here. We can save that for another time. Right now, my goal is not to have them thinking deeply about content, but practicing good conversational skills. If I put real content into the mix right now (Were the California Missions a good thing or a bad thing? Who is the protagonist in this story? If mosquitoes are so annoying, shouldn’t we just exterminate them all?), they would have such a hard time trying to think through the content that they would struggle to also practice using these conversational skills. Overload. Let the kids master these new skills first before applying them to content lessons! One thing at a time.
Next, we’d open up the conversation to the whole class. Actually, I forced everyone to participate. First, I gave them an easy out: “If you really don’t know what to say, you can always just repeat someone else’s thought: ‘Ah, so Daniel thinks it’s too expensive.’ And that’s it. That’s fine. It’d be good practice to add more, but if you have nothing more to add, it doesn’t hurt to just show you were listening.”
Then I have all the students stand up. I start off the conversation, and once a student has responded, they can sit down. We go until everyone has sat down.
Me: Which subject is more important: math or reading?
Matthew: Are you asking which subject is more important? Well, I think math is more important, because if you don’t know how to add, you can’t count up money to buy stuff.
Mark: I agree with Matthew that math is more important, and I also think you need it so you know how fast to drive your car.
Luke: Mark made a good point about driving cars, but I think reading is more important because you need to know how to read so you can read signs and know where you’re going!
John: So are you saying that you need math and reading for driving? I can see that, and I also thinking you need reading for buying stuff, like Matthew said. How will you know what you’re buying if you can’t read the labels?
Esther: I agree with John that reading is important. I think math is more important for life, though, because you can’t live without money and you have to know math to take care of your money.
Jude: Esther makes a good point about money, but you can always use a calculator for that stuff. I think reading is more important because you have to be able to read the news and texts and stuff from your friends which is all the time!
We go all the way through until the conversation seems to have exhausted itself, at which point I usually insert a new topic. The kids always laugh and giggle during this activity, enjoy a lively debate, and come out of it having heard and practiced these sentence stems many, many times.
It’s the best when we’re having a class conversation, and students actually start USING THESE on their own to show that they were listening! They aren’t just little kids thinking their own little thoughts and itching to say what’s on their mind- they’re mature little kids who work hard to listen well and politely agree and disagree with each other! Teaching them to listen well is already an accomplishment, and having these kinds of conversations is a really nice cherry on top! It’s a fun activity that we’ve always enjoyed, and a life skill I hope they carry with them well into adulthood!
2 responses to “Teaching Kids How to Have a Discussion”
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These are such good lessons for adults too. 🙂
I LOVE this idea! It’s much better to teach this skill to them when they’re young, than to have to contend with poor manners when they’re older! 🙂