ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that reading and writing, speaking and listening are learned behaviors that must be taught. It is known that speaking and listening are not a function of personality but rather learned skills that must be taught in school. Practicing these four skills in concert is the only way we have to consistently teach clear, coherent, and sophisticated thinking in our classrooms. During pre- and post-seminar process sessions, teachers coach speaking and listening skills enhance the students to identify and practice specific behaviors designed. Unlike reading and writing, which seem to fall within the province of the classroom, our speaking and listening habits are formed elsewhere and there is little we can do about it, either as individuals or as teachers. The teachers grasped that the pre- and post-seminar process sessions were the intervals in the seminar cycle when they could and should do the majority of their skills-coaching participation.
