That’s great that students are so eager to participate in your VTS
discussions! Reading your post was interesting for me since I haven’t
experienced facilitating a VTS discussion with children.
In addition to learning how to
master the three questions and paraphrasing, I’m sure it is quite a task to
facilitate a discussion when your class isn’t behaving the way you would like
them to. It seems like that is what is worrying you the most, so as you said, I
would continue to tell your students what you expect of them before you start a
discussion. Perhaps, if the management issue persists, you could have a set of
rules for VTS discussions posted somewhere in the room easily noticeable so that
the rules for how they should act stick, and hopefully they will get use to the
process. As for the students towards the back who were messing around, if they
continue to sit in the back, I would probably have them sit towards the front
of the group. Perhaps then they would be less inclined to bother each other. I
think with time you will figure out how to manage your class. It’s good that
they are really engaged otherwise and want to provide their input.
I too have trouble dealing with people saying a lot of different things
to the point where I am struggling with how to paraphrase and even remember all
that they said. To answer your question, I wouldn’t necessarily time students
when they talk. I would suggest before starting a discussion to tell students
to not spend a lot of time talking, that they should try to quickly say what
they’re thinking to give other people the opportunity to talk. Perhaps you
could even tell students that when they want to say something, stick to sharing
one or two things about the image but no more. That way you’ll be able to paraphrase
more easily and students won’t continue to talk. Otherwise, it looks like you’ve
got a class that will always be excited for VTS which is great, so keep up the
good work!
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