Any techniques for getting talkative high school students to quiet down in class?

Question

They all want to talk at the same time. I ignore them if they do not raise their hand and they talk anyway. They are so excited to participate that they want to speak, but they end up drowing out other students who might want to say something but don't. I have tried passing out a talking stick and that has worked a little bit. I have also tried attention getters (shushing them, flickering lights, those who are paying attention must clap or raise their hands, etc). I haven't tried bribery yet. Think that will work?

Answer 1

Ask them to stand when they answer. Raise their hand, then stand. The one standing "has the floor" (it's their turn to talk). Eventually they will learn to listen to each other.

Answer 2

Talkative Students

Answer 3

My suggestion is to establish specifics: ie. only one person speaks at a time, when that person is speaking-- all eyes are on that person to listen out of respect, etc.

Everything in life has a consequence, in this case, being the social and talkative creatures that they are... if they do NOT follow your rules, take THEIR time... keep them 15 seconds, 30 seconds etc, after your class dismissal time, time the "punishment" (it will seem like an eternity), but make certain to dismiss them with enough time so they won't be late to the next class.

Answer 4

Wow, what a dilemma! I'm usually dying for my students to participate more.

Have you tried offering participation points? If it goes into their grade, the students who don't usually participate may be more motivated to offer answers.

Perhaps you could give out a certain number of "talking tokens" or something to each student. Then their use of talking tokens will figure into their participation grade.

For example:
"Each student will get 5 talking tickets each day. When you give an answer, you should turn in a talking ticket to me. If you don't have any more talking tickets, you may not volunteer to answer a question for the rest of the class. Students who use at least two talking tickets will get points for participation in the class today."

It could also be as easy as doing the old "write the name on the chalkboard and put checks next to it" trick. After you've told the class that you'd like to call on them before they speak, you can write the names of students who talk out of turn on the board, and add check marks next to the name when they do it again. After a while they usually get the hint. I don't know why it's so uncomfortable for them to have their name up there, but they don't like it!

I would be really reluctant to discourage participation in these ways. Once you train them not to talk, you might be wishing that they talked more! Maybe if there are only a couple of students who are doing this, you could just talk to the individual students about it. They may simply be eager to please and not realize that it derails your teaching.
"John, I'm so glad that you want to participate in class. I'm really impressed that you know so many right answers. However, when I ask questions to the class, it helps me to know how students are doing. If I don't give other people a chance to answer questions sometimes, I can't get a good idea of whether the other students understand. Do you think you could raise your hand before calling out the answer so I can check that other students understand too?"

Perhaps part of the problem is that they get worked up because they are having a lot of free time during the class to talk with their friends. It seems like you might be having trouble keeping the class working and getting their attention after activities, etc. In this case, I would advise that, when you are giving the instructions for the activity, you give them something to do when they finish (instead of talking). For example, if students are working on a worksheet, you could prepare an additional small worksheet for them to do when they finish. Also give them a time limit so that the slower people will be more motivated to keep up the pace. That helps so that all the students finish at more or less the same time, and they don't have a lot of time to get bored and restless.
"You will have 5 minutes to do this activity. If you finish the activity early, come up to the front and get the blue worksheet. You can work on the blue worksheet until I say so."

As far as getting their attention, flicking the lights and so forth work pretty well. There is also waving and waiting for the students to wave back, touching your nose, etc. I think all of these methods work, but they work best when you tell the students what they are beforehand.
"You will have 5 minutes to work on this activity. When you see the lights flicker on and off, stop working and pay attention to me."

I learned to sing to my students one time out of desperation when I wanted to get their attention and couldn't get it. Believe me, when they heard me singing they stopped working! After that, I have learned to incorporate this into my classroom-management plans. Now I give instructions like this:
"You will have 5 minutes to work on this activity. When you hear music, stop working and pay attention to me."

Answer 5

tell them If they hush up, they get to leave 5 minitues early and those who dont have to stay 5 mins after the bell.

All my teachers have this problem but they dont have the brains to do anything about it but give primetimes (1 hour after shcool detention)

Answer 6

Shoot them.