You Can’t Teach to the Thinking You Can’t Hear

I’m usually the first person to raise my hand, volunteer, or jump into a conversation. Bold, outgoing, and talkative are probably words most people would use to describe me.

 

Younger me wouldn’t believe you if you told her that. Standing in front of a room was my version of a living nightmare. My knees would shake, my voice would crack, and there was a good chance I’d be fighting back tears. Not because I wasn’t smart, didn’t have ideas, or didn’t want to participate. I was still trying to express myself in English well enough to sound confident, and I spent more energy trying to sound right than showing what I understood.

 

From the outside, I probably looked like a successful student. I followed directions, completed my work, and rarely caused concern. What people couldn’t see was how much work it took to make it look that way. Sometimes I figured it out. Sometimes I didn’t. Most times I was just good at pretending I did. Fake it till you make it, right?

 

Talking felt risky. If I raised my hand, there was always a chance I’d get it wrong—not because I didn’t know the answer, but because I wasn’t always sure I could put my thinking into words.

 

Most days, I chose silence. It felt safer than vulnerability.

 

When I became a teacher I thought my story belonged only to multilingual learners. Then I started paying closer attention. I found pieces of that same story in students who spoke fluent English but still hesitated to share an idea, ask a question, or risk being wrong. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just about language. It was about all the reasons students learn to keep their thinking to themselves.

 

We can’t respond to thinking we never get to hear.

The Silent Student

 

I can’t tell you how many students I’ve met who remind me of younger me.

 

They’re not disengaged. They’re not unmotivated. They’re listening to every word.

 

They may even understand far more than we realize. But we might not create opportunities for them to make their thinking visible. A student can finish their work, nod along, and stay out of trouble, and we walk away assuming they understood.

 

I know because I was that student.

 

The problem is, silence can look a lot like understanding. It isn’t always.

 

Amy Mosquera says it best: “Academic talk is scarce where it is most needed—in classrooms with high numbers of linguistically and culturally diverse students.” That line stayed with me. Not because teachers don’t care. Most work incredibly hard to support students. It stayed with me because it forced me to ask whether I really knew what students were thinking, or whether I’d simply gotten good at recognizing participation.

 

I Was Listening for the Wrong Thing

 

If you visited my bilingual classroom a few years ago, you would’ve seen everything you were supposed to see.

 

Many of my observations were with administrators who didn’t speak Spanish. They couldn’t understand the conversations happening around the room. They saw students engaged. They saw students talking. They saw a classroom that looked successful.

 

So did I.

 

It wasn’t until I stepped into leadership that I had the chance to watch classrooms differently. I wasn’t responsible for facilitating the conversations anymore. I was listening to them.

 

Students leaned in, turned to their partners, and conversations filled every corner of the room. But the longer I listened, the more I realized I had been looking for evidence of participation when I should have been listening for evidence of thinking.

 

That realization changed the way I thought about classroom conversations—not every conversation makes thinking visible. Turn-and-talks can be one-word responses, repeated ideas, or students simply agreeing with one another without ever explaining their reasoning.

 

Talking, by itself isn’t the goal. Thinking is.

 

The kinds of conversations that deepen learning don’t happen by chance. They are intentionally designed to invite students to explain, justify, question, connect, and build on one another’s ideas.

 

I stopped asking whether students were talking. I started asking, “What is this conversation making visible?” The answer wasn’t another discussion strategy. It was a different way of planning for conversation altogether.

 

That’s what became the TALK Framework: a planning lens that helps teachers intentionally design conversations that make student thinking visible.

 

T – Tap into students’ linguistic resources so every learner has an entry point into the conversation.

 

A – Advance thinking by asking students to explain, justify, and extend their ideas.

 

L – Leverage collaboration so students build understanding with and from one another.

 

K – Knowledge Build by ensuring every conversation moves learning forward, not just fills time.

 

When conversations are designed with purpose, they become more than moments of participation. They become windows into student thinking. And once thinking becomes visible, instruction becomes responsive.

 

The Student I Never Left Behind

 

Maybe that’s why this work still matters so much to me. With the TALK Framework, I want teachers to have a way to intentionally design the kinds of conversations I wish someone had intentionally designed for me. Conversations that don’t just invite students to participate but help them reveal what they’re thinking.

 

Because somewhere, there is another student sitting quietly hoping someone notices there is a lot more going on than she’s able to show. Every classroom reminds me she wasn’t the only one. She still isn’t.

 

If I could go back and teach one student, it would be the student I used to be.

 

I wouldn’t measure her understanding by how often she raised her hand. I’d be curious about her thinking. I’d want her to leave my classroom knowing she never had to sound perfect for her thinking to matter. Most of all, I’d want her to know someone was listening beyond her silence.

 

I may never get the chance to teach the student I used to be. But I carry her with me into every space I walk into. She still shapes the questions I ask, the learning experiences I design, and the educator I’m still becoming.

 

In many ways, she’s still the one teaching me.

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More Resources for You:

Embracing Oracy: A Foundational Skill for Multilingual Learners

Creating Cross-Linguistic Connections to Strengthen Biliteracy

Math Language Routines That Help Multilingual Learners Succeed