Teacher Voice
Now that you have established your classroom rules and procedures the real challenge begins: maintaining those expectations over the entire school year. In this section, we will look at ways that you can be proactive in your efforts to help students be successful in meeting your expectations. Specifically, we will explore how your facial expressions, posture, and tone influence the messages you send.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:
- Stand and speak with purpose.
- Give clear, concise instructions.
Teacher Voice
In addition to having a plan of how you want your students to behave and how you will organize your classroom, it is also important to think about how you will present yourself when things begin to go slightly off track. In his blog and other Teach Like A Champion books, Doug Lemov (2015) refers to this skill as Strong Voice. Over time, your students may just refer to it as your “Teacher Voice.” Whatever you call it, one thing you must realize is that your posture, facial expression, and tone have a strong influence on the learning environment. According to Lemov (2015), there are six foundational principles for presenting a strong teacher voice. Therefore, it is worth your time to practice developing self-control in these areas so as not to send the wrong messages to your students.
- Use Formal Register: Speak and stand with a purpose.
- Square Up, Stand Still: Stand tall, face audience, and hold.
- Quiet power: Lower your voice and speak slower.
- Economy of Language: Excess words initiate distraction
- Do Not Talk Over: “Self-interrupt” to wait for students to listen.
- Do Not Engage: Don’t stray, stay focused on the current issue
To see a detailed breakdown of the video above, check out Doug Lemov’s blog post, Erin Krafft Uses Just Enough Correction.
Register
Register encompasses eye contact, body position, gestures, facial expression, and rhythm of language by a person during a conversation or interaction (Lemov, Hernandez, & Kim, 2016). Recognize the difference between casual, formal, and urgent registers. Learn how to use each in the classroom and make your shifts between the registers obvious.
| Three Types of Registers | ||
| Register | Voice/Words | Body Language |
| Casual | Words may run together (pitter-patter rhythm)
Wide range of inflection and tone Language itself is colloquial |
Asymmetrical/relaxed body posture (e.g., leaning more on one foot, or leaning on a wall)
Inconsistent eye contact Repetitive/sweeping hand gestures |
| Formal | Clear, slower articulation of syllables and distinction between words
Words chosen carefully |
Words chosen carefully Symmetrical body posture Standing up straight Steady eye contact Chin up Hands clasped or behind back; simple, controlled hand gestures |
| Urgent | Heightened tone and volume
Words run together Increased tension in voice |
Wide eyes
Leaning in vs. standing straight up Sharp gestures |
*Table adopted from Lemov, D., Herna