Talking Tokens

Three tokens each. You spend one every time you speak, and when they are gone you listen. It rations the children who would talk all lesson and it makes silence expensive for the ones who would not speak at all.

It works in both directions. It quietens the dominant child and obliges the quiet one, with the same rule.

Counters, or the printable. Anything works — cubes, coins, cut-out tokens from the sheet here.

Twelve minutes. Long enough that running out actually happens, which is when it starts teaching.

A timer for each stage, with what the children do in each · free to try · no sign-up

The sheet it prints — optional

The printable Talking Tokens sheet — an A4 page of thirty-six tokens to cut out, three per child.

What are talking tokens?

Talking tokens is a discussion structure in which every child is given a small number of counters — usually three — and must spend one each time they speak. When a child has spent all their tokens they may no longer contribute until everybody else has spent theirs.

It is the only structure in this set that regulates a discussion from inside, rather than by imposing an order on it: the conversation stays natural, but the distribution of it does not stay natural.

How do you run talking tokens, step by step?

Hand out (about a minute). Three tokens each, placed in front of them where the group can see how many everyone has left.
Discussion (about eight minutes). Discuss as normal, but a token goes into the middle every time somebody speaks. Long enough that people genuinely run out.
Who is left? (about two minutes). Ask who still has tokens, and bring them in deliberately before you finish.

Twelve minutes. Shorter than that and nobody runs out, and running out is the entire mechanism.

Does it not make the discussion artificial?

Yes, for the first few minutes, and then it stops. What is genuinely artificial is a discussion in which four children speak forty times and six children speak never — that just looks natural because it is familiar.

What to watch is the opposite failure: a child hoarding tokens so as not to have to speak. The last stage exists for exactly that, and asking “who still has two?” is a much gentler way of drawing somebody in than naming them cold.

From the classroom

Two tokens, not three, was the change that made this work in my class. With three, my talkative children still got three goes each and the discussion was over before anybody ran out, so nothing was ever rationed. With two, the dominant ones hit the wall about four minutes in, and that is the moment the whole thing turns — you can watch them physically sitting on their hands, and the quiet children realise the floor is genuinely available. I also stopped using counters and started using the printed tokens here, because a cube can be fiddled with silently and a paper token has to be visibly put down. One caution: this needs a group of four to six. In a pair it is meaningless, and in a group of eight nobody runs out. With Year 5 I now pair it with a question that has no right answer, because if there is a right answer the discussion ends before the tokens do.

What usually goes wrong with talking tokens?

Too many tokens. If nobody runs out, nothing has been rationed. Two is often better than three.
A child hoards them to avoid speaking. The final stage is designed to catch this — do not skip it.
The group is too big. Four to six. Beyond that the tokens last longer than the discussion.
Tokens get fiddled with. Flat paper tokens that must be visibly placed work better than cubes.

Which year groups is it for?

Year group	US grade	What to change	How long
Years 2–3	Grades 1–2	Two tokens, groups of four, and model spending one yourself first.	8 min
Years 4–5	Grades 3–4	Two or three tokens. Add the who-still-has-some stage properly.	12 min
Year 6 and up	Grades 5–8	Tokens cost more for a statement than for a question, which changes what they say.	15 min

Talking tokens compared with the other turn-taking structures

Round Robin rations by fixed order rather than by spending — guarantees coverage, but the conversation is not really a conversation.
Number Groups makes everybody prepare because anybody might be called, without regulating the talk itself.
Fishbowl is what to use when the problem is that they do not know what good discussion sounds like, rather than who is doing it.

Free to try · no sign-up · the sheet is optional

Round Robin →The other way to ration turns — by fixed order rather than by spending. All 24 cooperative structures →Think Pair Share, Round Robin, Snowball and the rest — each with a timer and a step-by-step.

Written by a practising primary school teacher, and part of the free-to-try Teaching Routines set on Sage Teachers. Last checked August 2026. Everything here is free to try.