How do teachers' revoicings affect students' listening and learning?

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to clarify the effects of teachers' revoicings on students' listening and learning. Fifth-grade social studies classes in 2 elementary school classrooms were observed, and then given immediate recall and comprehension tests. The results showed that revoicings involving blackboard representations provided additional opportunities for the students to listen to others, supporting the students' listening as effectively as oral revoicings did. Moreover, different styles of revoicings affected both how the students listened and how well the)' comprehended. When the teacher in 1 of the classes presented the students' utterances on the blackboard using revoicings and positioned the utterances as the central theme of each lesson, the students integrated some of the utterances into 1-sentence summaries of the theme. In the comprehension test, the students used their memory of these summaries to express the substance of what was learned in class. In another class, where the teacher used revoicings to clarify the meaning of the students' statements, the students recalled both the utterances and the names of the speakers. In the comprehension test, the students demonstrated that they could express their understanding in their own words.