Comments: Extension, or Why Good Partners Add a Reason
An extension is a reply that adds a reason, a feeling or a prediction to what you just said, then hands the turn back to you. It doesn't correct you, quiz you or tell the next part of your story. Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) use it to keep people talking, and it's the move the Edgewise coach calls Comments.
These are learning strategies borrowed from speech therapy, not therapy. Learning a language is not a disorder, and neither is an accent.
What is an extension in language learning?
The Hanen Centre trains parents and educators in language-building conversation. It describes extending the topic as giving "additional information that increases a child's understanding" (The Hanen Centre, n.d.-a). Hanen adds that it belongs in a balanced conversation, where both partners take turns talking.
For an adult retelling a story, the added information usually takes one of three shapes:
- A reason: why something happened. Because she was sure she'd win.
- A feeling: how a character felt. The mouse must have been terrified.
- A prediction: what someone expects or what might happen. He thinks he has plenty of time.
What an extension never adds is the next event. That part is yours.
Extension vs. expansion vs. recast
All three moves respond to what you said. They do different jobs. Here they are in Spanish, with a learner retelling The Lion and the Mouse.
| Move | Edgewise name | What it does | Coach says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Learner | El ratón ayudó el león. (The mouse helped the lion.) | ||
| Recast | Fixes | Says it back with the error fixed | Sí, ayudó AL león. (Yes, he helped THE lion.) |
| Expansion | Builds | Rebuilds the sentence, a little longer | Sí, el ratón ayudó al león en la red. (Yes, the mouse helped the lion in the net.) |
| Extension | Comments | Adds a reason, feeling or prediction | ¡Qué buen amigo! El león estaba muy agradecido, seguro. (What a good friend! The lion was very grateful, for sure.) |
A recast and an expansion work on your sentence. An extension works on your idea.
It treats you as someone telling a story worth hearing, not someone taking a test.
Why add a reason? What the research says
Most of this evidence comes from children and classrooms. No study here tested an app or adult self-study, so read it as borrowed logic, not proof.
Responsive adults, talkative children. Researchers observed 26 child-care providers with toddlers and preschoolers. Providers used more topic extensions with preschoolers than with toddlers. All three types of responsiveness they measured had a strong positive link with preschoolers' language productivity (Girolametto & Weitzman, 2002).
That's a correlation, not a test of cause.
Talk about feelings can be trained. In a small randomized study, 16 educators either got a 2-day in-service or didn't. Afterward, the trained group used more abstract talk about emotions and past experiences during storybook reading.
Children answered that kind of talk appropriately more often (Girolametto et al., 2007). Hanen's summary describes the gain as utterances that invited children to connect the story to their own experiences and emotions (The Hanen Centre, n.d.-b). The changes were short-term.
Talk beyond the here and now. A study of 50 parent–child pairs looked at decontextualized talk, such as narrative, which goes beyond what's in front of you. With preschoolers, it explained extra variance in vocabulary a year later (Rowe, 2012). Reasons, feelings and predictions are exactly that kind of talk.
Genuine interest gets longer answers. One study does involve adults learning a second language. Some teachers of 24 adult ESL learners were trained to ask referential questions, ones they didn't know the answer to. Their classes gave longer and more syntactically complex answers.
Learners also used more connectives (Brock, 1986). That study was about questions, but the principle carries: respond to meaning, not to a test.
That's why the Edgewise coach comments more and quizzes less. In real conversation, about 1 turn in 6 has a question, by our own count from the Switchboard corpus of recorded phone calls.
A coach that asks a question every turn isn't talking with you. It's testing you.
Extension examples in Spanish and Korean
Each comment responds to the learner's last event and stops there.
Spanish
| Story | Learner | Coach (extension) | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Tortoise and the Hare | La liebre se durmió. (The hare fell asleep.) | ¡Qué confiada! Pensó que iba a ganar. (So confident! She thought she was going to win.) | Reason |
| The Three Little Pigs | El lobo sopló y la casa se cayó. (The wolf blew and the house fell down.) | Claro, la paja no es muy fuerte. (Of course, straw isn't very strong.) | Reason |
| The Lion and the Mouse | El león atrapó al ratón. (The lion caught the mouse.) | ¡Pobre ratón! Tenía mucho miedo, seguro. (Poor mouse! He must have been really scared.) | Feeling |
Korean
Korean usually marks a comment about someone else's feelings or thoughts as a guess. Endings like -나 봐요 and -(으)ㄴ가 봐요 mean "it seems." The ending -겠어요 means "must be." So the coach's comments sound like inferences, the way a Korean speaker would say them.
| Story | Learner | Coach (extension) | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Three Little Pigs | 늑대가 돼지들을 봤어요. (The wolf saw the pigs.) | 늑대가 배가 많이 고픈가 봐요. (The wolf must be really hungry.) | Feeling, as a guess |
| The Tortoise and the Hare | 토끼가 나무 밑에서 잤어요. (The hare slept under a tree.) | 자기가 이길 줄 알았나 봐요. (It seems he was sure he'd win.) | Reason, as a guess |
| The Lion and the Mouse | 사자가 쥐를 잡았어요. (The lion caught the mouse.) | 쥐가 정말 무서웠겠어요. (The mouse must have been really scared.) | Feeling, as a guess |
Notice what's missing. The coach never says Then the tortoise passed him or Then the mouse bit the net. Those are the learner's lines.
Why the coach never tells the next part
Walsh's research on teacher talk shows that a teacher's words can either build learner contributions or block them. He warns teachers against filling in learners' gaps and smoothing over their turns (Walsh, 2002). When a helper supplies the missing piece, the learner loses the turn that would have built it.
In a retell, the missing piece is usually the next event. If the coach says it, the coach has told the story. Edgewise scores your story structure: who and where, the problem, the attempts, the outcome and the ending.
A part the coach supplied isn't a part you produced.
So when you stall, the coach doesn't narrate. It waits first. If you're still stuck, it can hand back the start of a sentence for you to finish.
Extensions do the opposite job: they reward what you just said and leave the door open.
Big thoughts. Small sentences. The comment adds the thought. You add the next sentence.
For teachers, tutors and SLPs
Hanen's Extend the Topic strategy transfers well to adult conversation practice. Respond to the learner's idea with a reason, feeling or prediction, then pause. Keep questions genuine; Brock's adult ESL findings favor questions the teacher can't already answer. The hardest habit to break is supplying the next event when a learner stalls. Wait instead, then give the smallest cue that works.
FAQ
What is an extension in language learning? An extension is a reply that adds a reason, feeling or prediction to what a learner said, then hands the turn back. It keeps the learner's idea and adds meaning without correcting or quizzing.
What's the difference between expansion and extension? An expansion rebuilds your sentence with more grammar or detail. An extension adds a new idea about what you said, such as why it happened or how someone felt.
Why does the coach comment instead of asking questions? Comments invite you to keep talking without putting you on the spot. In real conversation only about 1 turn in 6 has a question, by our count from the Switchboard corpus. So the coach asks some questions but comments more.
Does the research on extension apply to adults? Mostly indirectly. The extension studies are with children and educators, and the adult study (Brock, 1986) is about genuine questions in ESL classrooms. Treat it as a well-grounded principle, not a tested adult method.
What if I can't think of what happens next? The coach won't tell you. It waits, and if you're still stuck it can start a sentence for you to finish. The next event stays yours.
Your next step: Try a story retell in Edgewise. The coach comments more and quizzes less, and it never supplies the next plot event: you tell the story. Your first retell sets your level. Edgewise scores story structure and sentence building, and every round ends with your next piece: one specific thing to add next time.
Join early accessSources
- Brock, C. A. (1986). The effects of referential questions on ESL classroom discourse. TESOL Quarterly, 20(1), 47–59. https://doi.org/10.2307/3586388
- Girolametto, L., & Weitzman, E. (2002). Responsiveness of child care providers in interactions with toddlers and preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 33(4), 268–281. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2002/022)
- Girolametto, L., Weitzman, E., Lefebvre, P., & Greenberg, J. (2007). The effects of in-service education to promote emergent literacy in child care centers: A feasibility study. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 38(1), 72–83. https://doi.org/10.1044/0161-1461(2007/007)
- The Hanen Centre. (n.d.-a). Poster – Extend the Topic [Learning Language and Loving It]. https://hanen.org/shop/poster-extend-the-topic
- The Hanen Centre. (n.d.-b). Learning Language and Loving It research summary: Study 4. https://hanen.org/information-tips/llli-research-summary-study-4
- Rowe, M. L. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. Child Development, 83(5), 1762–1774. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01805.x
- Walsh, S. (2002). Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research, 6(1), 3–23. https://doi.org/10.1191/1362168802lr095oa