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The Two Conversations Classroom: A Complete, Student-Centered Approach to Teaching a Second Language
This book presents a highly student-centered approach to teaching a language.
Language courses are often designed around thematic content. It is traditionally assumed that it is the teacher's job to make sure that students are interested in a thematic unit, such as a unit on parts of the house. The teacher develops activities to force students to use language that may not interest them. In the end, the teacher develops assessments to force students to pay close attention. The students’ interests are the last to be considered when planning the school year.
However, if we focus on who we are teaching, rather than what we are teaching, the class content emerges naturally from our class conversations. Not only is it easier for the language teacher to develop a compelling and enjoyable language experience by centering the lives of actual students as the content of each class, but it is also more likely to generate language that students find relevant . Class time is no longer wasted on a list of words that students resist learning; instead, we focus on communicating messages that are pertinent and interesting to the students in the classroom.
This book presents many classroom techniques to structure conversations in the target language with the goal of discovering who we are teaching . As these class conversations grow, our students’ proficiency in the target language also grows.
After years of focusing class on my students’ lives, I realized that I also wanted to carve out more time discussing the target language cultures that are foreign to many of my students. We developed a balance between two class a student-centered conversation that I call “ Student Voices Activities ” and another conversation where we explore what I call “ Voices of Others ”.
Finally, we added a beginning of class routine and an end of class routine . The beginning of class routine develops the skills of independent readers and eventually leads to a full pleasure reading session in the first ten minutes of class. The end of class routine provides a written summary of the class through a community writing technique called Write & Discuss . There is also an extremely easy daily exit quiz about our class conversations that ensures that all students are following along with the content generated in class.
Thus was born “ The Two Conversation Classroom ”. This approach supported an extremely successful language program in a high-poverty public school system. While we still dealt with high-absenteeism and a culture of not doing homework, our program developed a 100% pass rate on AP and IB exams. More importantly, we became happier students and happier teachers as our classrooms became refuges rather than sources of conflict.
Language courses are often designed around thematic content. It is traditionally assumed that it is the teacher's job to make sure that students are interested in a thematic unit, such as a unit on parts of the house. The teacher develops activities to force students to use language that may not interest them. In the end, the teacher develops assessments to force students to pay close attention. The students’ interests are the last to be considered when planning the school year.
However, if we focus on who we are teaching, rather than what we are teaching, the class content emerges naturally from our class conversations. Not only is it easier for the language teacher to develop a compelling and enjoyable language experience by centering the lives of actual students as the content of each class, but it is also more likely to generate language that students find relevant . Class time is no longer wasted on a list of words that students resist learning; instead, we focus on communicating messages that are pertinent and interesting to the students in the classroom.
This book presents many classroom techniques to structure conversations in the target language with the goal of discovering who we are teaching . As these class conversations grow, our students’ proficiency in the target language also grows.
After years of focusing class on my students’ lives, I realized that I also wanted to carve out more time discussing the target language cultures that are foreign to many of my students. We developed a balance between two class a student-centered conversation that I call “ Student Voices Activities ” and another conversation where we explore what I call “ Voices of Others ”.
Finally, we added a beginning of class routine and an end of class routine . The beginning of class routine develops the skills of independent readers and eventually leads to a full pleasure reading session in the first ten minutes of class. The end of class routine provides a written summary of the class through a community writing technique called Write & Discuss . There is also an extremely easy daily exit quiz about our class conversations that ensures that all students are following along with the content generated in class.
Thus was born “ The Two Conversation Classroom ”. This approach supported an extremely successful language program in a high-poverty public school system. While we still dealt with high-absenteeism and a culture of not doing homework, our program developed a 100% pass rate on AP and IB exams. More importantly, we became happier students and happier teachers as our classrooms became refuges rather than sources of conflict.
276 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2022
About the author
Mike Peto
44 books38 followersMike Peto is a Spanish teacher who teaches his classes through community storytelling methods. We create, tell and read stories that are compelling and 100% comprehensible, even to beginners.
If you are a language teacher, please check out my language teaching blog and sign up for my free weekly newsletter of teaching techniques: https://mygenerationofpolyglots.com
If you are a language teacher, please check out my language teaching blog and sign up for my free weekly newsletter of teaching techniques: https://mygenerationofpolyglots.com
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 30, 2024
You might notice that the author and I share a last name. We also share parents. But keep reading. Sharing blood is even more reason for me not to sugarcoat this review. After all, brothers must keep each other real. I also have a familial obligation to make sure that my brother’s texts don’t fall short in the future if they fall short now. I am duty bound on the grave of my father and all our ancestors to tell it like it is.
Luckily, I truly believe this book is full of insights for language teachers. Although I am not a high school (and/or middle school?) language teacher like my brother, this book is very useful for all language teachers. Directly.
It is also directly and indirectly useful to others. For example, although I work in an elementary school, we have language teachers too, and Mike’s insights are transferable. I would love to hear from a motivated and curious elementary language teacher who has experimented with the routines and ideas here. I would love it if a teacher at my school took up the call.
I also work at an IB school. All IB teachers are language teachers, right? There are lots of ideas here for exploring what that means whatever your specific content area, starting probably with the ideas about remaining comprehensible. Those ideas are encapsulated in “Ten Essential Techniques for Easy Communication”. Those techniques are among basic skills to maintain a class conversation in the target language, and although I believe I am pretty adept at that, I read with interest because the secondary language classroom is different but also relevant to all classrooms. I think all teachers (and students ultimately) could benefit from serious reflection about how comprehensible they are, not just at international schools but everywhere, considering the diversity that exists among our student populations - Universal Design for Learning, people!
Other chapters also caught my eye. The two conversations of the title refers to curriculum and the daily content of lessons. Part of most of my brother's classes are devoted to Student Voices Activities and part of most classes are devoted to Voices of Others Activities, which refers to the target culture or cultures. It is a concept that has a lot of potential at IB schools, because it allows for the integration of voice, choice and agency as well as the integration of units of inquiry.
In this review, I emphasized how the content of this book inspires my thinking about language classes at the elementary level. There is a lot of room for exploration, because the book is very practical. If you are a language teacher, or a teacher in general, and you want to be more effective, I think you are very likely to learn a lot from Mike Peto! No lie.
Luckily, I truly believe this book is full of insights for language teachers. Although I am not a high school (and/or middle school?) language teacher like my brother, this book is very useful for all language teachers. Directly.
It is also directly and indirectly useful to others. For example, although I work in an elementary school, we have language teachers too, and Mike’s insights are transferable. I would love to hear from a motivated and curious elementary language teacher who has experimented with the routines and ideas here. I would love it if a teacher at my school took up the call.
I also work at an IB school. All IB teachers are language teachers, right? There are lots of ideas here for exploring what that means whatever your specific content area, starting probably with the ideas about remaining comprehensible. Those ideas are encapsulated in “Ten Essential Techniques for Easy Communication”. Those techniques are among basic skills to maintain a class conversation in the target language, and although I believe I am pretty adept at that, I read with interest because the secondary language classroom is different but also relevant to all classrooms. I think all teachers (and students ultimately) could benefit from serious reflection about how comprehensible they are, not just at international schools but everywhere, considering the diversity that exists among our student populations - Universal Design for Learning, people!
Other chapters also caught my eye. The two conversations of the title refers to curriculum and the daily content of lessons. Part of most of my brother's classes are devoted to Student Voices Activities and part of most classes are devoted to Voices of Others Activities, which refers to the target culture or cultures. It is a concept that has a lot of potential at IB schools, because it allows for the integration of voice, choice and agency as well as the integration of units of inquiry.
In this review, I emphasized how the content of this book inspires my thinking about language classes at the elementary level. There is a lot of room for exploration, because the book is very practical. If you are a language teacher, or a teacher in general, and you want to be more effective, I think you are very likely to learn a lot from Mike Peto! No lie.
Displaying 1 of 1 review