Replacing lecturing with Talk, Read, Talk, Write

First, thanks to all of you for attending the training. I thought Nancy did a great job of giving us a practical and realistic way to improve our instruction. Second, thanks to those of you who were the first to post. My hope is that we can keep communicating our thoughts and ideas through this medium during the summer.

I've been reading Nancy's book and noticed something interesting. She asks her readers to "think of TRTW as a replacement for the lecture approach" and to replace lecturing and similar 'sit and get' approaches with reading academic texts and having structured conversation about the text. Perhaps there is a place for lecture, but, in my opinion, that "place" is very small and very short, especially regarding teaching junior high students. When I think about my most fruitful learning experiences, I remember two things: 1) Having experiences like traveling to other countries and starting new jobs where I was forced to 'learn on the fly' and 2) Having opportunities to have in-depth and meaningful conversations with other people. Only a few times (if ever) are we able to give our students extraordinary experiences like traveling to other countries or visiting a place outside school, but with the TRTW approach, we can give our students opportunities to have in-depth and meaningful conversations with other people daily.

I'm looking forward to seeing how we will get our students reading academic texts, learning more academic language, and learning by talking to each other.