The Principle of Instructional Explanation Strategies

Ken Hyland

University of East Anglia, UK

The best instructional explanations are, simultaneously, both deceptively simple and profoundly powerful. We have all experienced the difference between an explanation that illuminates and one that obscures: the teacher whose words make a difficult concept suddenly clear, and the one whose explanation leaves us with more questions than answers. This book begins from that everyday experience and asks a deeper question: what makes some explanations so effective at fostering learning? By exploring strategies that transform explanation from mere information delivery into a catalyst for understanding, it aims to bridge the gap between research and practice in ways that empower educators and enrich learners’ experiences.

Some years ago, while observing a classroom teaching practice by one of my trainee teachers in London, I watched a teacher introduce idioms to her learners by listing their meanings. The students copied them down but remained disengaged. The teacher must have realized this as, after 15 minutes or so, she abandoned that approach and retold the same idioms through short, humorous stories, complete with gestures and exaggerated expressions. This time, the room erupted with laughter, and students began offering idioms from their own languages. The explanation had shifted from transmission to connection, transforming the atmosphere and the learning. Such moments remind us that the most effective explanations do more than convey information: they invite learners into an experience that makes meaning memorable.

This book by Yanne Tse seeks to capture—and explain—such moments. It draws on decades of research in philosophy, educational psychology, pedagogy, and communication, yet it is firmly anchored in the practical realities of teaching, never losing sight of the individual learner struggling to understand new information. Yanne states that understanding is the main objective of teaching, which places acts of explaining, and the concept of explanation itself, at the heart of what goes on in classrooms. What is explained? How? What works and why? Taking us carefully through the background of the term in the literature, the book identifies instructional explanation strategies in 14 types of knowledge in nine subject lessons through analyses of semi-structured interviews, video-stimulated recall interviews, video recordings, and classroom observations. Through her analyses, Yanne discovers three approaches that represents a core shared by all explanation strategies: concluding that instructional explanation requires the integration of familiarization, visualization and contextualization to scaffold students’ understanding. She follows this with implications for teacher training, including a sample course outline and advice for teachers.

Effective instructional explanations are not accidents; they are the result of deliberate choices about language, structure, examples, and interaction. They are also sensitive to context: the needs of learners, the nature of the subject matter, and the goals of instruction, as well as the teacher’s instructional philosophy and teaching strategies. In other words, explanation is both an art and a science—shaped by empirical findings but also by the teacher’s intuition, creativity, and responsiveness. In this book, Yanne Tse suggests ways that teachers might build their own knowledge for more effective teaching by incorporating familiarization, visualization and contextualization approaches to support their explanations and the understanding and learning of their students.

She proposes a Principle of Instructional Explanation Strategies to fill the gap between how teachers explain new material and students’ development of appropriate schema, describing how explanation strategies can facilitate assimilation and accommodation. This book, therefore, contributes to our understanding of pedagogical approaches through a re-examination of scaffolding techniques to provide a framework of instructional explanation for different knowledge types.

By weaving together theoretical insights and practical guidance, this book invites readers to reflect on their own explanatory practices and to consider how subtle shifts in strategy can dramatically alter the learning experience. Its purpose is not only to describe what effective explanations look like, but also to inspire educators to craft explanations that spark curiosity, reduce confusion, and open pathways to deeper understanding. Above all, it seeks to illuminate the particular challenges and possibilities of explanation in teaching, where clarity and connection are essential for learners navigating new ideas and new ways to talk about them.

The word explanation first caught my attention years ago when I asked my supervisor, Professor Christopher Candlin, what I should focus on for my master’s dissertation. Explanation, he said—and I was intrigued. I took it forward as the core of my thesis research, but my fascination did not end there. Over time, it extended into my everyday work as a lecturer in higher education.

From the late 1990s onward, I attended countless teacher training programs and workshops, exploring pedagogical approaches like inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, and cooperative learning. Yet, despite all these methods, I noticed a glaring gap: none of them taught how to explain knowledge effectively.

In reality, no matter what teaching approaches I used, my core task remained the same—explaining new knowledge to students. Before each class, I planned how to present every piece of content. During lectures, I observed which explanations worked and which didn’t. Why did one analogy resonate while another fell flat? Why did students grasp a concept in one class but struggle in another? Every lesson became a live experiment, a constant inquiry into what makes an explanation truly effective.

This raised deeper questions:

• When students say one lecturer explains better than another, what exactly makes the difference?
• Can explanatory skills be taught, or is it just a natural gift?
• In higher education, pedagogical training is often optional. Does this mean teaching effectiveness depends solely on a lecturer’s personal charisma or subject expertise?
• If so, why do students still struggle to understand? What’s missing?