Do you go to your student’s classroom to get him/her and walk back to your room and then walk the student back to his/her classroom?  This can be valuable time for assessing, bonding, and learning! 

Picture having a conversation with the student in a noisy hall.  Walking side by side naturally minimizes the visual cues available to the student and if necessary I have an itchy nose!  This helps me see if the student is able to auditorally follow a conversation while changing topics in a poor acoustic environment. And if they can’t, what do they do about it?

For relationship building, I like to ask:

• How are you?
• What was one fun thing you did yesterday?
• What is special or different about this week at school? 
• What did you play at recess?
• Did you turn in all of your English assignments?
• Your turn to ask me a question!
• Follow up on previously known personal information – How  was your basketball game?  Is your mother home from the hospital?  Did your sister enjoy the field trip?

I have to remember to vary the questions so the student really does have to understand and process what I’m saying!

Another idea comes from the research on learning.  In this post a tutor describes how he uses the time walking in the hall for practicing retrieval of previously learned material.  

This idea can easily be used with our students as we can ask them:

• what they remember about the previous session
• if they have implemented a specific strategy they learned or practiced
• new vocabulary that was worked on
• how their equipment has been working
• how accommodation usage went on a field trip
• why they have a hearing loss
• name the three parts of the ear, etc!  

Research shows that when we ask a student to retrieve information from their memory, that information is retained longer!  How do you use time walking in the hall with students?