Finding the Rightness in Our Students’ Answers

by Isaac Márquez

“Plenty of opportunities for low-stress output…”

I mention this as the second part of what students need to be successful in learning language in the classroom:

1. Comprehensible input
2. Opportunities for low-stress output.

This combination is what gives students the best chance to grow as English learners and learners of academic vocabulary.

Of course, comprehensible input is essential and often requires significant effort. Every teacher I’ve known employs visual aids, gestures, repetition, and language-rich anchor charts to make input comprehensible for their learners.

However, providing abundant opportunities for output is sometimes neglected. As educators across the country become more aware of the needs of emergent bilinguals, the practice of giving students more time to use language in the context of the lesson is gaining traction. Teachers are also employing strategies like providing ample processing time, allowing students to share with a peer, and offering sentence stems to help make these opportunities for output as low-stress as possible.

A powerful strategy to lower the affective filter

There is something else that I learned about when I first joined Seidlitz Education, something Dr. Stephen Fleenor told me that really stuck with me and made me think. He said that sometimes he tells educators that, if nothing else, they should try to find the “rightness” in their students’ answers. Now, at first, I didn’t get it. Or at least I didn’t understand the implication of making this one small change or the huge difference it could make for our students.

First and foremost, what does it even mean to find the “rightness” in our students’ answers? It simply means that when we ask a student to provide an answer to, say, a question in a QSSSA, we focus on the correctness of their response rather than the incorrectness. That’s all there is to it. That one small difference can have a significant impact on a student’s affective filter. Instead of simply pointing out that their response is wrong, we leverage what they’ve said and present it in a way that clarifies and conveys the message, “What you said is not entirely correct, but it is valuable and contributes to the learning.”

How does finding the “rightness” in a response manifest? 

Fortunately, this exact scenario naturally arises during almost all of my training sessions. As part of the learning process, I often guide my participants through at least one simulation where they assume the role of my students and I play the role of their teacher. I then demonstrate the strategies they are learning so that they can experience the situation from the student’s perspective. Naturally, I also incorporate content that may not be familiar to everyone. Near the end of the simulation, when I randomly call on participants to respond to an open-ended question, it almost never fails that someone provides an answer that is not entirely correct…and I absolutely love it when this happens, because I get to show off this technique! Recently, a participant gave me an opportunity to demonstrate this strategy to the entire group, and it went something like this:

On the screen, a structured visual depicted the phrase “long-term environmental change.” Below the title, a sequence of visuals showed a forest gradually shrinking in size and population over several thousand years. Each phase was accompanied by an icon resembling a thermometer, whose temperature gradually increased. The intention was to convey that the forest’s decline was caused by a gradual rise in average temperature over an extended period of time.

However, when I asked one of the participants to describe the process of long-term environmental change, their response was similar to, “During this process, the trees are dying out because the weather is getting hotter and hotter.”

While the visual suggests that environmental change is happening due to rising temperatures, it’s important to distinguish between weather and climate. Climate refers to long-term weather patterns, while weather refers to short-term fluctuations.

In the past, I may have responded by exclaiming to the whole group that the correct term here is “climate” and not “weather.”However, in this case, I responded with something like, “Ah, so you noticed the thermometers increasing in temperature over time. Here, the temperature is low, and after thousands of years, it’s high. So, yes, this change in climate seems to be the cause of the trees’ decline and, consequently, this long-term environmental change.”

That’s it. I validated the participant’s response, which added value to the learning without drawing attention to their incorrect term in front of everyone. That is finding the “rightness” in a response. In language learning, sometimes we call this a recast.

Finding the “rightness” isn’t hand-holding.

Now, you might be wondering, as someone once pointed out to me after discussing this, doesn’t this prevent students from recognizing their mistakes? We can’t constantly hand-hold them. They need that productive struggle to identify their errors. A participant once actually told me this after explaining what “finding the rightness” entails.

My response was that, of course, they’ll know they’re wrong. This isn’t hand-holding. If we only point out the correctness of their answers and clarify any misconceptions, they’ll notice that their response wasn’t entirely accurate. However, we’re saving them from unnecessary embarrassment in front of their peers and teaching them that it’s okay to make mistakes. We’re creating a safe classroom environment where even mistakes can be valuable tools that contribute to everyone’s learning.

Ultimately, the goal of any educational approach should be to create a learning environment where students feel safe to explore, make mistakes, and grow. By finding the “rightness” in their responses, we not only help them understand their errors but also build their confidence and willingness to participate. This, coupled with comprehensible input and opportunities for low-stress output, forms the foundation of a successful language-learning experience. As we strive to improve our teaching practices, let’s keep in mind the power of these small yet significant changes that can make all the difference in our students’ educational journeys.

Want to learn more from Isaac about helping students become successful learners of academic vocabulary? Join him October 24 in Houston for Teaching Science to English Learners.