Understanding How Teachers Listen in a Reading Enrichment Program

Abstract

Asking questions that invite students to access advanced thinking skills during classroom discourse is a key strategy for challenging and supporting high-ability middle school readers. This critical teaching practice requires careful teacher listening. However, empirical research around teachers’ listening orientations, or how teachers listen, is sparse. We investigated five middle school reading teachers’ listening orientations as they conducted differentiated reading conferences as part of their first year implementing the Schoolwide Enrichment Model–Reading Framework (SEM-R). Our qualitative analysis of multiple data sources revealed evidence of differing teacher listening orientations, including evaluative, interpretive, student oriented, teacher oriented, undetermined, and combinations of these. This exploratory study has important implications for understanding how teachers’ listening orientations contribute to classroom discourse. Specific implications pertaining to high-ability readers are highlighted in the article.

Gifted Adolescent Readers’ Perceptions of How Teachers Should (or Should Not) Listen During Dialogic Discourse

“…One could argue that an evaluative listening orientation would be the type of listening teachers exhibit during IRE discourse patterns, while student-oriented listening or interpretive listening would be more common in dialogic discourse exchanges. Gilson and Little (2016) found that the teachers primarily listened to students with an interpretive listening orientation regardless of reading level, which was not surprising given the constructivist nature of this orientation. However, one might have expected stronger patterns of student-oriented listening when teachers asked the students, including gifted readers, higher level questions.…”

“…This student-centered approach to listening aligns with the student-centered nature of dialogic discourse and gifted pedagogy. For example, in a qualitative study of how six reading and ELA middle school teachers listened to students at different reading abilities (i.e., struggling, average, and high ability) while implementing the SEM-R (Reis et al, 2005), Gilson and Little (2016) found that teachers exhibited and self-reported three different listening orientations or combinations thereof, including student-oriented, interpretive, and evaluative listening. Student-oriented listening involved teachers listening more openly to students, responding without preconceived ideas of an answer to a question, and sharing the ownership of leading the discourse with students.…”

“…Noteworthy, researchers have identified ways teachers’ listening can be fallible or vary in potentially negative ways (Burgess, 2012; Gilson & Little, 2016; Wallach & Even, 2005). For example, Burgess (2012) identified three types of listening problems of Years 5–8 statistics teachers.…”

“…Teacher listening is an important phenomenon that requires further research attention. Researchers have concluded that teachers exhibit different listening orientations, or ways in which they are positioned to listen to students (Coles, 2002; Davis, 1997), including teachers of gifted readers (Gilson & Little, 2016). These findings suggest that teachers of gifted readers could intentionally differentiate their listening (Worthington & Fitch-Hauser, 2012) during discourse based on the needs of the learners; however, further research is necessary to understand how it might affect student achievement and participation during classroom discourse (Gilson & Little, 2016).…”

“…Researchers have concluded that teachers exhibit different listening orientations, or ways in which they are positioned to listen to students (Coles, 2002; Davis, 1997), including teachers of gifted readers (Gilson & Little, 2016). These findings suggest that teachers of gifted readers could intentionally differentiate their listening (Worthington & Fitch-Hauser, 2012) during discourse based on the needs of the learners; however, further research is necessary to understand how it might affect student achievement and participation during classroom discourse (Gilson & Little, 2016). Surprisingly, although the intersection of teacher listening and discourse has been explored in the mathematics education literature over numerous decades (e.g., Coles, 2002; Davis, 1997; Empson & Jacobs, 2008; Lim et al, 2020; Mhlolo & Schäfer, 2012), it has received a paucity of research attention from the literacy and gifted education fields, with a few exceptions (Boyd & Markarian, 2011; Gilson & Little, 2016; Sangster & Anderson, 2009).…”