7 Easy Tips to Manage a Talkative Class + Freebie

Inside: Do you have a chatty class? Do you need help to reduce the classroom noise levels? Find 7 helpful tips to manage a talkative class and get a handle on the noise level in your room.

Your students walk in with the boisterous chatter that children have. You quieten them. They make their way to their desks and the talk is building, while they continue to discuss their favourite topic with their friends.

You ‘SH’ them again.

This tiring behaviour of chattiness continues throughout the day. It wastes good teaching time and it’s disruptive. By the end of the day, you’re exhausted from all the redirections.

…In transition time.

…In group activity time.

You try strategy after strategy to quieten the din of this talkative class.

I’m sure you’ve all had classes like this. I know I have!

It can be so overwhelming and tiring for any teacher to be able to manage the incessant talk.

But, what I’ve realised is; a quiet, self-disciplined class does not just happen.

What is needed, is for you to become a very good classroom manager; and to learn to explicitly TEACH your students how to self-manage their chatter.

N.B. And what you probably don’t realize is, that if you don’t get a handle on this type of behaviour early, it can be just one nail in the coffin towards burnout for you, from all the stress it can cause.

Help manage a talkative class by getting your FREE Voice Levels Chart here from the Teachers’ Resource Library:

How do you get your class to stop talking?

If you’re new at the classroom management game, to answer this question quickly, you need to TEACH THEM NOT TO and that talking at inappropriate times, is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Let me explain this in more detail..

Teachers need to explicitly teach their expectations

Above all, a good classroom manager must be explicit about teaching the expectations of student talk.

And, it’s not just teaching it once.

It’s a continual process of students learning about classroom talk – as is everything else we teach students.

I know some very good classroom teachers who manage chattiness extremely well and others, well…I think they need a bit of help in this area.

We all do, from time to time, depending on the cohort you have.

Some students just need to talk. You probably know that. Have you ever had a student that just talked all the time? It didn’t matter who you sit them next to, they just had to talk.

So, this being the case, by allowing them time to talk in the lesson, you can then leverage this time to help them learn.

This means, give them many opportunities to use their conversations to develop their understanding of what they’re learning in the lesson.

If you’re new at this or just needs some help, here are some ideas to manage a talkative class and get the chattiness under control.

Ideas to manage a talkative class

Managing student discussions

In many lessons, student-talk can be used to engage the learners in the content. These student discussions are such a valuable strategy to help develop their new understandings.

In the primary setting, for example, this can be done in a whole class reading lesson. For example: give your students the opportunity to discuss what they’re learning about with their partner – sharing their answers or opinions about the text they are reading.

Example Lesson sequence:

At the beginning: students share with their buddy what their story prediction is.
Throughout the lesson: students share with their partners about their responses to teacher-led questions
At the end of the lesson: students share with their learning partner what they learnt, or if their predictions matched the story ending.

But be very clear and explicit about what this learning talk looks like. It’s helpful to set time-limits with a timer, so the children know the deadlines for their talk.

You’ll find that when your students are given these opportunities for a constructive talk, they will benefit by developing a deeper understanding of the concept.

It also allows all students to have a voice and feel heard… not just the same ones answering all the time, with their hands up high, quicker than a jackrabbit.

But as I said, these student discussions need to be managed very carefully.

To do this you’ll need to be very clear on your expectations and explicitly teach what this will look like in the classroom so that students understand what is required of them in the lesson. Modelling this behaviour, with non-examples is the perfect way for children to see what you want from them.

GRAB THE FREE VOICE LEVELS CHART TO HELP YOU EXPLICITLY TEACH YOUR EXPECTATIONS AND MANAGE A TALKATIVE CLASS:

How do you teach student talk?

Lee Canter explains very clearly how to teach student talk, in his book, Assertive Discipline. (Refer to my post where I review this awesome positive behaviour management resource, that’s a must for all teachers to read). He says that the ‘foundation of any lesson is the behaviours you want your students to learn,’ to ensure the success in the activity.

Have a look at these ideas to teach student talk.

1. Teaching Partner-Talk

It is important to clearly teach the steps of what you expect students to do so they can successfully work with a partner when needed:

For example, explain and model the following behaviours, including how they should speak, when working with a partner:

sit facing their partner
speak in a quiet 30-centimetre voice
work on the assigned activity
model the kinds of language you would expect to hear

It can be useful to use a visual aid to help teach the expectations of voice levels and what a 30- centimetre voice means; what it looks like, and what it sounds like. You will then be able to refer to this chart session by session until it’s learnt.

2. Tips for Group Talk

Just as in partner work, students need to be taught the expectations of working in small groups; how they should talk and behave with the 3 -6 students in the group.

Give student clear instructions of what group-work looks and sounds like. These are a few things you would tell your students:

work on the assignment
stay seated
talk only about the assignment and in quiet voices

To help with the managing of groups, I also use a chart that clearly outlines the group-work expectations and then I model these behaviours with what I’m looking for and the conversations I expect to hear when I observe students working together.

It does take some time, but with effort and consistency, your students will be clear on what you are looking for with student talk. Don’t give up on it!

The book I referred to, by Lee Canter, Assertive Discipline: Positive Behaviour Management, was instrumental in helping me to successfully get on top of the student talk in my classes over the years and also to manage ‘that’ talkative class. I would thoroughly recommend this resource to help you if you’re at your wit’s end and rescuing urgently. Read my post here for a review of this helpful behaviour management book.

Voice Levels Chart to manage a talkative class

An additional tool I use in my classroom, to help calm the chattiness, is using a voice-levels chart. This type of chart is able to clearly rate student voices/noise levels with a number and is a must to refer to regularly. It allows you to explicitly outline the volume of student voices in various situations.

Teach these voice levels for all learning occasions in the classroom and as I said, refer to it often.

Voice Levels include:

Level 0 – Silence. No talking at all. Tests and quizzes
Level 1 – Minimal Talking – partner and independent work
Level 2 – Quiet Talk – Partners – only loud enough to be heard by your partner
Level 3 – Quiet Talk – small groups – other groups cannot hear you
Level 4 – Full Voice – whole class discussions – loud enough to be heard across the room

This levelled approach assists students to understand the appropriate volume of talk they should be using in a variety of different situations in the classroom. Plus, if the chattiness flairs up, you can quickly bring your student’s attention to this, and easily downgrade the noise.

Get your FREE Voice Levels Poster here from the Teacher Resource Library:

In addition to a voice level chart, I find that having a variety of strategies in my teacher-tool-belt to call on when appropriate, helps me manage a talkative class.

Here’s some others tips that will help manage a talkative class:

Additional strategies to minimize classroom chatter

Arrange desks in rows – a talkative class will be much more focused and engaged in their learning if desks are arranged in rows. Kids don’t need any encouragement to talk, so if they are in small table groups they will. Rows facing the front of the classroom helps minimise unwanted talk.
Table Points – this is a clever tip to help encourage students to cut out the chatter. Award points to groups that are focused and quiet. This creates competition between students and is useful especially if there are rewards involved.
Make lessons engaging & fun – lessons that are enjoyable will keep students engaged and focussed for longer This is not new, but can sometimes be forgotten).
Movement breaks – including movement breaks in sessions and throughout the day can help minimise talk and keep students engaged. Who amongst us can sit for hours and hours on end without a break?

See my post about daily mindfulness that can help students to be much more focused in the classroom. (Includes a free Mindfulness printable).

In finishing – Tips to manage a talkative class

I hope these 7 management tips give you a variety of ideas of how you can quiet and manage a talkative class – if and when you might need it.

As a reminder:

don’t forget to explicitly teach your expectations
teach and model all aspects of what student-talk should look like in your room
allow many opportunities for your students to talk throughout the learning process
use a Voice-Levels Chart to manage the classroom noise
manage student discussions
teach students how to talk with each other – in both partner work and small group activities

Get this under control and working well, and it’s one less thing that will give you stress and then you can focus on the many other important things in the life of a teacher.

Good luck!

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7 Easy Tips to Manage a Talkative Class + Freebie

Help manage a talkative class by getting your FREE Voice Levels Chart here from the Teachers’ Resource Library:

How do you get your class to stop talking?

Teachers need to explicitly teach their expectations