The proposed strategies for teaching speaking and listening can enable children to use each other's minds as a rich resource. Creating a Speaking and Listening Class: Integrating Talking to Learn in Key Stage 2 / by Lyn Dawes.
INTRODUCTION
Talk for learning
This book examines some classroom talk and describes strategies to encourage meaningful talk that can be adapted for use across the curriculum.
TALK TOOLKITS OF TEACHERS
The teacher’s toolkit: some ineffective talk
Triangles
Gilliam, you're listening today, tell us (Gilliam doesn't raise her hand) - triangles (draws a triangle in the air with her hands; other kids wave and make "I can't wait to tell you" noises). Three sides and three angles, but maybe not always the same, for a triangle. continues with questions about a square).
Comment
- The Great Fire of London is an extract from a whole class session with a Year 3 class. The children were seated on a carpet and the teacher had a laptop from which
- The Great Fire of London
- What seeds need
- Eating apples
The children sat on a rug and the teacher had a 3rd grade laptop. The teacher has in mind the idea that the children would discover that the houses were thinner, made of wood, huddled together, and so on.
The teacher’s talk toolkit
- Ask questions
- Create a working relationship with children
- Give clear explanations
- Help children to explain what they think and why
- Iron
- Function machine
The teacher made the children think about the numbers and how to manipulate them and asked them an honest question - "what did you do?" She really doesn't know what strategy the children used and invites them to tell her and the class . The teacher does not know how the children feel and does not make them motivated or interested.
Conclusions
Children know this phrase - they know that propositions can be challenged and that different points of view will be considered. You could blame the teacher for being a bit directive; however, the classroom conversation is never perfect and we can see that she is talking to the kids the way she would like them to talk to each other.
ON THE CARPET
Preparing children to take part in whole class discussion
Amazingly, most kids from reception onwards seem to know this; they often sit quietly and participate in whole class sessions. But all children need a clear understanding of why the whole-class sessions are taking place - what it does for them - and how to participate fully.
On the carpet
We can help children by teaching them to follow what they hear and connect it with their thinking. In summary, children need to know that a dialogue is expected and that they should be part of it.
Pointers for effective carpet sessions
Have a day of the week when the mat is not used for whole class work. Groups or individuals can use the mat to read, share, discuss, plan, distribute resources, etc.
Working on the carpet – questionnaire
This will help maintain the novelty value and promote the idea of the carpet as a collaborative learning space. They can also make children aware of the importance of working together in class lessons.
Talking with children during lesson conclusions
Learning intentions, shared with the class, help children understand what they are doing and why. A Year 6 class I visited was carefully writing the Literacy Learning Intention: 'To understand how writers use different structures to create coherence and impact'.
Closing plenary discussions
Decide with the class what could be a focus for further learning in the same area and ask the children to suggest how what they learned from the session could be used in other contexts.
Teacher’s talk and children’s behaviour
Helping classmates to learn
Who’s helped you learn?
Knowing how to do this is not a natural skill, but can be learned and fostered in any child. Listening to group work can help you determine who will contribute to the conclusion of the lesson.
GROUND RULES FOR EXPLORATORY TALK
Direct teaching of exploratory talk
Suggestions for teaching and learning exploratory talk
- Awareness of talk for learning
- Asking and answering questions
- Getting children into groups
- Taking part in exploratory talk
- Creating ground rules for exploratory talk
The value of exploratory conversation is that it is comprehensive, rational, measured, thoughtful and focused. Their use is consolidated by practice and the opportunity to discuss the difference between exploratory talk and other types of talk encountered inside and outside of school.
Talking Points – group discussion: what are the problems?
Discussion activities
If the task is too difficult, the children either fall out with each other or actually. The challenge level of activities must be carefully matched to the children's abilities.
Every child’s voice
If a task or problem is too easy, the group has nothing to talk about and just does it without discussion. Teaching speaking and listening, raising awareness, getting the whole class to see their importance to each other, giving children a voice and listening to it and offering them insight into how they learn is the essence of education.
Making a group decision
Group decision
We can see the teacher using exploratory talk to teach the children how to do the same: she provides a good model for the children to follow. Teachers can provide children with direct guidance so that they understand how and why to use exploratory talk - how to discuss things, giving reasons.
SPEAKING AND LISTENING FOR READING AND
WRITING
Talk supports reading and writing
You can provide 'props' in the form of models or images of the characters or settings. No one goes there much.’ The basement was full of broken bicycles and skates and scooters and things like that.
Literacy activities using story opener Jorian the Unimouse
Group activity: speaking and listening
The sky spun and great balls of rain fell from the treetops like weights. At that moment, there was a knock on the door of the Oak Tree House from Sparky Wiremouse, who had been walking around the tree houses after the storm with his bag of light bulbs, fuses and fasteners.
Writing activities
Suggestions for writing activities
Talking Points: Jorian the Unimouse
Reading activities
Suggestions for reading activities
And then it was the best time of the year; spring was moving up the valley, bringing leaves and insects and long cool days. Declan and Scout were talking about it on the way home from school, taking turns walking the low walls of the houses on either side of the road.
Literacy activities using story opener Onyx Quest
Talking Points: Onyx Quest
- Special equipment: choose three items
- The main characters
- About the dragon
- What happens at Declan’s house?
Sometimes children prefer to get into the story themselves; in this case, they can change a character's name to 'I'. If you like, you can ask the children to think together to discuss some of the talking points offered.
Suggestions for reading
Children's initial discussion, and discussion of the subsequent writing activities, can be the basis for further reading. What teachers can do is help children to want and be able to read and write a wider range of texts.
TALK FOR LEARNING ACROSS THE
CURRICULUM
Speaking and listening strategies for curriculum learning
Talking Points
Talking Points: Light
Talking Points: Materials
Talking Points: Plant life
Talking Points: Ourselves as animals
Notes and Queries
Notes and queries are the children's initial ideas (Notes) and the things they want to know (Questions). This strategy allows each child to share ideas, not just those selected in a hands-up session.
Further activities based on Notes and Queries discussion
Annotated Diagrams
What annotated diagrams can we draw in Science?
Question Trail
Each group starts with a blank piece of paper, writing the name of the group at the top and folding the paper to cover it. At this point, group members may need to cross the classroom to exchange papers because all groups are working on their own time, some needing more than others during the discussion.
Further activities based on Question Trail discussion
There are many more – interlocutors, concept cartoons, puppets, mind maps and concept maps for example (see Further reading) and you can create your own. So if you have a speaking and listening activity that really supports your topic and you put "exploratory talk" on your lesson plan, that's not just a blank space - it's probably the best part.
TALK ABOUT OPINIONS AND FEELINGS
On Sunday, Orla was allowed to go to the park to walk Fizzy. She got up and tiptoed along the edge of the trees and very softly – and quite hopelessly – called 'Fizzy!'
Discussion activities based on Some Friends
- Orla’s questions
- Talking Points – what do you think? Why?
- Notes and Queries
- Annotated Drawing
- Question Trail
- Name Swap
Think of an additional question using points from the discussion, only use Orla's question if you are stuck. Ask groups to discuss the idea of swapping all the girl's names in the story with boys' names and vice versa.
An example of talk about feelings
Teasing is an extract from discussion between a teacher and two Year 6 children whose behaviour had disrupted others
Ask groups to discuss answers; then decide and write their own answer to the question.
Teasing
It is inevitable that friendships will be tested and that there will be teasing; however, it allows children to better understand their situation and that of others, and helps them avoid some problems. Nevertheless, it is still crucial to talk about problems so that children learn to be honest about themselves and respect other perspectives.
DECISION LEARNING
Creative teachers, creative learners
Learning can take place through talking, with a high level of motivation fueling the child's involvement. Children accustomed to highly structured school days may need to adjust to making their own decisions about learning.
Aims of decision learning
It can give you invaluable opportunities to hear what children think, so that subsequent planning can be based on an understanding of each child's needs. This chapter provides a plan for building children's awareness of what is expected of them and what to expect when they are asked to make decisions about their own learning.
Activities and resources for decision learning
Organising an afternoon of decision learning (2 hours)
Ask the children to talk to their group to plan which activity to do first and why, and agree this with you to check that resources are not stretched. This may seem like a big limitation, but kids need to learn to really commit to what they're doing, and they won't do this by starting to do four or five things half-heartedly.
An afternoon decision learning
More ideas for successful decision learning
Help them realize that they are offered opportunities, not forced to do something. After all, it can be more satisfying to do one thing well than to delve into many things.
The role of the teacher, Teaching Assistant and child
Establish a classroom atmosphere of cooperation rather than competition to help children feel that they are succeeding in their learning because of others, not in spite of others. Remind children that their families want them to do well and expect them to make the most of their time at school; that one of their responsibilities in their family is to do their best in class.
Organising a whole day of decision learning (3 hours + 2 hours)
They need to know that they have to tackle activities wholeheartedly and with concentration, think about questions and try to answer them.
Morning session
Before break time
After break
After lunch
Ending the session
Behaviour for learning: and a classroom crime
A sustainable way to learn
Problems with behaviour
Strategies for reflecting on behaviour
There is no reason why we teachers should not, despite the imposition of an overcrowded curriculum, a punitive regime of external testing and inspections that make judgments based only on what is measurable. We teachers like to see children learning, developing and thinking, and we need to talk to them.
CREATING A SPEAKING AND LISTENING
CLASSROOM
Summary: creating a speaking and listening classroom
Talking with children for teaching and learning
The baby clinic
What can you tell us?
As you can see, it wasn't the number of 'teacher questions' that changed in the second session, but the amount of explanation Olivia could offer - that's real teaching. And there's no sitting pretty because the kids know they're part of the process—they're being asked to talk—and they want to contribute.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADDITIONAL REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
WEBSITES
