Episode 165: Listening to Silence: How to Use It to Understand and Engage Your Students in the Language Classroom
Update: 2025-09-25
Description
Silence in the language classroom doesn’t mean students aren’t saying anything. Silence is information.
In this episode of Growing With Proficiency: The Podcast, we explore why silence can be a valuable source of information and how teachers can use it to foster curiosity, lower risk, and create more meaningful engagement.
You’ll learn:
- The 3 main reasons students don’t respond to questions
- How to make your questions comprehensible and accessible
- Low-prep strategies that lower response risk and boost participation
- Ways to connect unit content to your students’ lives without rewriting your curriculum
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Episode 161 with Becca Silver: Moving Past the “Shoulds”
- Episode 157 with Dr. Karen Lichtman & Jason Fritze: Three Key Skills for Teaching Acquisition
- Episode 54 with Paulino Brenner: Asking Better Questions in the Language Classroom
- Episode 88 with Dr. Bill VanPatten: What about Output?
If you’re ready to reframe silence from something frustrating to something informative, this episode will give you practical tools and a new perspective to bring into your classroom tomorrow.
More resources:
- Join the waitlist for Growing With Proficiency: The Spanish Teacher Academy → growingwithproficiency.com/academy
- Follow me on Instagram @claudiamelliott
- 📑 Discover culturally rich, month-specific resources for Spanish classes in my TPT Store: Growing With Proficiency.
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