TESOL Trainers: Education Consultants
Connect
  • Home
  • SIOP Institute
    • Purchase Order Info
  • K12 Professional Development
    • Remote Teacher Training >
      • Remote K12 Professional Development
      • Remote Summer SIOP Institute
    • SIOP Professional Development
    • TESOL Strategies Professional Development
    • Engaging Students in the Classroom
    • Scaffolding Professional Development
    • Active Listening Strategies
    • Academic Vocabulary Professional Development
    • K12 Best Practices Professional Development
    • Peer Coaching Professional Development
    • Working With English Learners Professional Development >
      • Strategies for ELs in Content Classes Professional Development
    • Reflective Teaching Practices Professional Development >
      • Reflective Teaching Practices For K12 Teachers
      • Conscious Competence Learning Matrix
    • ESL and World Languages Teachers Professional Development
  • SIOP
    • SIOP Professional Development
    • SIOP Components and Features
    • SIOP Lesson Preparation >
      • SIOP Feature 1 Write content objectives clearly for students
      • SIOP Feature 2 Write language objectives clearly for students
      • SIOP Feature 4 Identify Supplementary Materials to Use
      • SIOP Feature 6 Plan meaningful activities that integrate lesson concepts with language practice
    • SIOP Building Background >
      • SIOP Feature 7 Explicitly link concepts to students backgrounds and experiences
      • SIOP Feature 8 Explicitly link past learning to new concepts
      • SIOP Feature 9 Emphasize key vocabulary for students
    • SIOP Comprehensible Input >
      • SIOP Feature 10 Use Appropriate Speech for Students Proficiency Level
      • SIOP Feature 11 Explain Academic Tasks Clearly
      • SIOP Feature 12 Use a variety of techniques to make concepts clear
    • SIOP Strategies >
      • SIOP Feature 13 Provide ample opportunities for students to use strategies
      • SIOP Feature 14 Use scaffolding techniques consistently throughout lesson
    • SIOP Interaction >
      • SIOP Feature 16 Provide frequent opportunities for interaction and discussion
      • SIOP Feature 17 Use Group Configurations that support language and content objectives
      • SIOP Feature 18 Provide sufficient wait time
    • SIOP Practice and Application >
      • SIOP Feature 20 Provide hands-on materials and/or manipulatives for students to practice using new content knowledge
      • SIOP Feature 21 Provide activities for students to apply content and language
      • SIOP Feature 22 Provide activities that integrate all language skills >
        • Four Domains of Language Speaking
        • Four Domains of Language Listening
        • Four Domains of Language Writing
        • Four Domains of Language Reading
    • SIOP Lesson Delivery >
      • SIOP Feature 25 Engage Students 90-100% of the Time
      • SIOP Feature 26 Pace the Lesson Appropriately to the Students Ability Level
    • SIOP Review and Evaluation >
      • SIOP Feature 27 ​Give a comprehensive review of key vocabulary
      • SIOP Feature 29 Provide feedback to students regularly on their output
  • Other Programs
    • Teacher Training for TESOL Programs
    • Professional Development for Higher Education >
      • SIOP for College Faculty
    • Multicultural Education Professional Development >
      • Intercultural Competence Training Programs
      • The Culture of US Academia
    • NM TESOL Endorsement >
      • Getting Your TESOL Endorsement
    • International Schools Professional Development
  • CONTACT
  • More...
    • Setting Students up for Success Tour
    • Resources >
      • TESOL Trainers K12 Resources
    • About TESOL Trainers
    • RSS Feed and Forum
    • Blog
    • Careers with TESOL Trainers
  • Reviews of TESOL Trainers

Strategies to Check for Student Comprehension

9/1/2020

1 Comment

 
TESOL Trainers K12 Professional Development
The number one job a teacher has is to assess his/her students. It is knowing what the students know and what they don’t that gives teachers the information they need to set their students up for success.  Without comprehension checking, a teacher may erroneously move ahead too fast/slow or increase/decrease student practice. 

The trick is always, ‘how do I get them to show me what they know?’  Once we figure this out, we can give students an opportunity to demonstrate their level of understanding and adapt our instruction according to their needs.

Working with English language learners (ELLs) pose even more challenges.  In addition to how safe students feel with the teacher and with one another, Non-native English speaking students may not understand the question, lack the language to respond, or remain silent for fear of making a mistake.

​There are both effective and not-so effective ways to check for comprehension
.  Here are five typical ways teachers check student understanding:

TESOL Trainers K12 Professional Development John Kongsvik
  1. The Look:  This instructor looks at the students’ faces and thinks, “They all seemed to understand.”
  2. The Feeling:  This teacherscans the classroom with his/her intuition and says, “It really felt like they were getting it.”
  3. The Question:  This educatorasks the class if they understand and states, “I asked them and they all nodded, yes.”
  4. The Test:  This instructor usesformal test, reviews it and considers, “It looks like they’re getting this but not that.”
  5. The Show & Tell:  This teacher gets the students to show they understand and considers,“What is this telling me about the students’ needs?”

Checking for comprehension is not only vital, but it can be a wonderful way to engage students when it's done effectively.
As TESOL instructors or content-area instructors, we are constantly searching for ways to determine when learning is or isn’t taking place.  We have undoubtedly used a host of different ways of checking for comprehension, and have gotten useful and not-so useful feedback on learning progress.

Let’s examine each of these comprehension checking ways to uncover the benefits and challenges that each presents.
TESOL Trainers K12 Professional Development Remote Training sessionsWho dare not understand?
The Look:  Looking at our students for signals of whether or not they are getting it is, in and of itself, not a bad strategy.  After all, when students are totally lost, it’s hard to hide the global confusion.  

The challenge is weeding out those who aren’t confused from those who are confused.  It doesn’t feel good to ‘look’ foolish, and some people tend to veil this more than others.  




Gauging student learning by looking at the students’ faces gives us a surface level understanding, but it’s not always accurate and rarely complete.

The Feeling:  Intuition is a good thing; the effective teachers that I’ve known always seemed to sense exactly when we got off track.  The more experience that we have teaching, the more honed this skill becomes.  It is perhaps how we use this that matters most.

The challenge comes in putting so much trust in intuition his alone.  Some students may feel like they are getting it but aren’t getting it at all.  Other students may sense they aren’t getting it may do their best to hide this.  

Using our sixth sense gives us a piece of the puzzle, but doesn't get to what is helping or hindering learning.
TESOL Trainers K12 Professional Development John Kongsvik directorAnybody got any questions?
The Question:  There are some cases in which ‘do you understand?’ and ‘any questions?’ work.  Confident, out-going students may voice their lack of comprehension, but most will not.  

Think about your experience as a student.  How many times has a teacher asked your class this question only to receive silent answers?  For a variety of reasons (fear, boredom, proficiency) we respond, ‘yes, we understand’ when we should say, ‘No, we don't understand’.  

The challenge comes when students say they understand but don't, or one or more students that seemed to be struggling confidently say they got everything.  


Asking students if they get it may be the easiest way, but it rarely gives us any useful clues.

The Test:  Formal tests whether on one lesson or a unit provide key information on where learning is happening.  Armed with this data, we can make decisions on what to students have mastered and what they need more of.  

The challenge is that we often receive this data after the fact.  Waiting until after the teaching is over to assess student learning inhibits us from adjusting our teaching in real time.  

Formal assessments are powerful comprehension checking tools but often come too late.
TESOL Trainers K12 Professional DevelopmentToday I'd like to show you...
The Show & Tell:  Getting students to show what they know in the moment gives a teacher a lot of insight in real time about learning.  Showing and telling is simply providing students with opportunities to demonstrate comprehension non-verbally, verbally, or in writing at any point in the lesson. 

The challenge is to do this effectively and efficiently.  Asking each individual student to show comprehension eats up a lot of time.  


Of all of the comprehension checking strategies outlined, the Show & Tell is the most effective in checking student comprehension.  
  • Students become more engaged as they understand their teacher may ask them to demonstrate their comprehension.
  • When a student demonstrates the learning effectively, students who may not have fully understood benefit; students who did understand have their comprehension validated.
  • When the student is unable to show his/her understanding, other students who struggle are encouraged; students who do understand, have the opportunity to peer teach.
  • The teacher can immediately gauge whether they need to back up, stay put, or plow ahead.

Getting students to demonstrate their understanding is the ticket to understanding their needs.

There are many ways to check for student comprehension.  

The Look, the Feeling, the Question, the test, and Show & Tell are perhaps the most common.  Each comprehension checking strategy has its advantages and disadvantages.  Effective teachers use a combination of comprehension checking tools to measure student learning.  

Non-native English speaking students may make checking for comprehension more challenging.  Teaching ELs provides instructors with a wonderful opportunity to consider how they check for comprehension and develop additional ways.

I’m tempted to ask you if you understand and dying to know if there are any questions.  So, come on; show me what you know about checking for comprehension strategies.

​John Kongsvik
John Kongsvik director of TESOL Trainers

John Kongsvik

John Kongsvik is the director of TESOL Trainers, Inc.  As an education consultant, John works with K-12 schools, colleges, and universities that serve English learners and non-native English speaking students.  Contact John to learn about professional development options TESOL Trainers has for your teacher training needs.   

TESOL Trainers offers K12 professional development to schools and educational institutions in traditional and online formats.

1 Comment

    Archives

    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020

    Categories

    All
    Checking For Comprehension
    Positive Teaching Practices
    The Format Of The TESOL Course
    The SIT TESOL Certificate Course Guide

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Written by Dr. John Kongsvik - TESOL Trainers
Designed by: Ciego Productions