P4C and Reluctant Speakers

I have been teaching in a primary school setting for nearly a decade, and during that time I have witnessed similar groups of children who are consistently eager to contribute ideas during class input. I also regularly observe other groups who generally remain silent during such discussions. The difference, I believe, is their confidence in vocabulary and content, which comes through an acknowledgement of and connection to the wider world.

This is an ongoing issue tackled throughout all subject areas for many different reasons, such as access to experiences and socio-economic circumstances. Although we put our pupils’ wellbeing at the heart of our decisions, we want our young people to feel intrinsically motivated to participate verbally in spoken sessions — not for praise or reward, but because they feel naturally intrigued by discussion topics and proud to use their voices for what they believe matters. We want them to know that what they say could have a positive impact.

As practitioners, we aim for genuine, chosen participation. We want to avoid children feeling forced to say anything if they are not ready to share their thoughts orally, but it is necessary for them to know that they have our support and that, in different ways, we can encourage them to speak up if they have a thought to share. Their words and perspectives may benefit the wider group, helping others gain new knowledge and develop new viewpoints.

We want them to trust themselves and the other participants in the shared dialogical exchange. The aim is for them to feel appreciated and valued by the group, recognising that the insight they provide could make a real difference. Before more hesitant pupils can contribute, it is the responsibility of the class teacher to establish an ethos of mutual respect and understanding within the class dynamic. Whether this is done through ground rules and boundaries, team-building tasks or discrete conceptual lessons, it will promote a positive learning environment where all children feel brave enough to express their ideas.

We need to lead by example and be role models in our responses and reactions to children’s spoken thoughts, so that children can recognise these considerate behaviours and replicate them appropriately. It can take time for reluctant speakers to feel reassured by others, build self-belief and find motivation in stimuli, but there are strategies that can encourage these children to participate openly and enthusiastically.

As a practice, P4C is highly collaborative and communicative. You make progress throughout the enquiry by building on each other’s ideas, challenging statements with questions, and considering what we already know as fact or assumption. If only a select few participants are providing the group with responses to stimuli, the enquiry can only go so far because of the limited range of concepts and lack of direction. The more purposeful voices expressed in the discussion, the more paths of enquiry can be explored and, therefore, the more the participants will discover together.

In order to have a successful session, pupils need to think and speak for themselves while also being influenced by their peers. Over the course of my P4C teaching, I have considered different ways to encourage reluctant speakers to become involved, both for their own personal development of confidence and for the opportunity to see how their thoughts can actually matter and inspire someone else’s thinking. Being a positive moral influence as a peer is a very powerful and memorable position to embody.

Firstly, I consider the order of my planning. From the sharing of ground rules to the group starter task, the structure and incremental building of skills can affect how the enquiry progresses. Secondly, I aim to provide the children with exciting, captivating and even unusual stimuli for them to explore, so that they genuinely want to participate. This allows them to make links throughout the session between the stimuli and the wider world, leading towards the main discussion.

Incorporating curriculum learning into P4C can help children embed subject knowledge, but the main aim is to get them passionate about talking. Stimuli do not have to be reduced to learning objectives. They could relate to a current world issue, something relevant to a challenge the class is facing, or anything that provokes curiosity and sparks imagination.

When the children build a philosophical question, I give them time to ‘question the question’. I decided to incorporate this activity so that children could clarify the meanings of the words, find linked or contrasting concepts, consider any assumptions made through the language, and begin to make decisions about their own views, as well as anticipating how other people might respond to them.

This provides the children with some preparation time, and this opportunity for refinement allows the enquiry to produce deeper, more creative responses. Children have time to contemplate why they think a certain way and even use their own experiences to support a point.

Before the full-class enquiry, if time allows, having small-group enquiries first can give children the chance to engage in a smaller setting, like a rehearsal before the main enquiry. This gives them time to check that their ideas are in line with the question and to practise their verbal skills before joining the whole-group enquiry.

A particularly popular activity with the children in this instance is ‘argument alley’. This is where a statement is made, and one partner must argue ‘yes’ while the other argues ‘no’. The children love contentious subject matter, feel safe to contribute given that the only listener is their partner, and enjoy exploring the freedoms of disagreement when they are not closely monitored by a teacher.

During the whole-class enquiry, there are many ways to encourage reluctant speakers to make their initial statements and responses. Firstly, an object can be passed around everyone in the class so that each child knows when it is their turn to speak and that this is their time, and no one else’s. The children can choose to pass the object along if they wish, but the choice is literally in their hands. Having ownership either way can encourage a sense of control for the reluctant participant.

Alternatively, all children could have two marbles. When a marble is placed in the centre of the circle after a contribution, they have used one of their opportunities to speak. This is generally a successful method because it limits the more confident children from taking over the enquiry, emphasising the goal of achieving an equal balance of voices throughout. It is also a visual cue for less confident speakers and may give them a sense of relief when they have used their marbles.

Next, the facilitator could focus on three main points highlighted during the initial thoughts that might provoke more interest or be more contextually relevant to reluctant participants. Teachers should check the group planning stage of the initial ‘question the question’ to see which ideas reluctant speakers wrote about. This can, in turn, support their opportunities to speak and begin to draw out their own areas of experience.

Knowing the speakers’ strengths can really influence how the facilitator chooses to engage and include them, giving them time to adapt their questioning for those specific participants.

Lastly, as facilitators, our job is to ask procedural and substantive questions, which can make a significant difference to the depth of response a child communicates. Procedural questions can draw out further explanation from a child, allowing them to reason, find evidence, contradict or relate to a point. These questions should be open-ended but can follow simple question starters such as:

‘Why do you think this?’

‘Why might someone disagree?’

‘Do you have an example?’

With these prompts, children are given time to elaborate on their responses. This may foster more creative ideas and allow them to feel that they have progressed the enquiry and developed both their own and others’ thinking.

My favourite example of an engaged philosophical discussion was during National Sports Day. The children loved sport in this particular class and were enthralled by a lesson where football was the main focus. I used a photograph of a yellow-card incident in which one player had pulled the shirt of another.

The children were perfect participants. They were actively keen to contribute, passionately but respectfully agreeing and disagreeing with each other’s ideas. Even the quietest members of the class were not afraid to challenge themselves by considering alternative concepts to those held by the majority.

Each child was motivated by the stimulus and by each other, constantly building on and responding to one another with little need for me to intervene. It felt authentic and sincere, as well as somewhat spontaneous in the most effective way.

As a facilitator, it was enlightening to see everyone listening to each other and responding with passion. They were committed to finding answers as a group and creating dynamic verbal exchanges, allowing them to feel empowered after the enquiry, with new mindsets and a greater awareness of different viewpoints.

Our young people have voices which should be openly heard and confidently articulated. For societal and emotional reasons, some children do not believe this to be true for themselves. There are anxieties that discourage children from speaking out, but with a collaborative or personal goal in mind, empathy at the core of their words, and a relational approach between their peers, their discussions could initiate a turning point for someone: a moment of clarity or an opportunity for change.

As their educational guides, all practitioners should make it their mission to inspire the younger generation to talk by owning their truths and celebrating displays of confident oracy. We should help them to know that they have our support and the trust of their peers, within an inclusive and conversational environment.