Oral language presentation for silverstream school 28.1.13

Introductions & Expectations

• A bit about me…

• A bit about you…

What do you want to learn today?

Aims for today’s workshop

• To explore how oral language relates to the curriculum

• Increase awareness of the impact of language difficulties on learning

• Gain an understanding of normal language development

• Discuss strategies to support language development in the classroom

Exploring Language

> Discussion – oral language & the curriculum> The impact of language difficulties on learning 9.10

> How language develops…> Conversational styles…

10.00

Morning tea 11:00

> Oral language strategies 11.30

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Discussion cards• Discuss the points on

the card with people at your table

(“ratings” are personal, and do not need to be shared – this is just for personal reflection)

• Offer feedback to the whole group

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Key CompetenciesManaging selfUnderstands verbal and written instructions.

Seeks and requests information.

ThinkingUses different question types.

Sequences information logically.

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Relating to Others

Understands a listener’s perspective.Gives sufficient relevant information.

Participating and contributing

Expresses ideas confidently.

Understands rules and expectations for interaction

Key Competencies

Managing self, Relating to others, Participating and Contributing

Follows routines independently

Listens to othersTakes turns

Understands facial expressions and body language

Understands rules for classroom and games Follows instructions Asks questions

Expresses feelingsResponds to questions

Provides relevant and sufficient information

Key Competencies

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Responding to texts in ways that demonstrate engagement

Understands the concept of a story

Follows adult finger when pointing to a picture

Points to a picture named by an adult

Understands that print has a meaning

Names pictures in a book

Makes comments about pictures

Asks questions about the story

Answers questions about the characters and events

Takes turns in conversations about books

Literacy Foundations

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Count a set of objects or form sets of objects.Order and compare objects or events by length, area, volume and capacity.

Understands, describes or explains:

One, two... objects More than one object

One-to-one correspondence

Comparisons: big, bigger, biggest

Shapes, colours, functions, physical attributes

Items that don’t belong in a group

Numeracy Foundations

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Why link language and learning ?

• Oral language underpins all learning and all social interaction (Learning through talk: Years 1-3, p.7).

• Strong oral language skills are linked to literacy and numeracy achievement.

(Tunmer et al., 2006)

Evidence

• Oral language underpins written language (Effective Literacy Practice in years 1-4)

Increased success with Literacy

Plus •Language

Plus •Interaction

Plus •Classroom Environment

Language difficulties

When school age children have significant language difficulties they are likely to need learning support.

• Children’s early identified language difficulties may persist into their school years.

• Children with spoken language difficulties may experience difficulties learning to read and write.

The impact of language difficulties at school

> Consider how language difficulties affect: following teacher instructions sharing news asking questions answering questions expressing feelings asking for help reading writing numeracy making friends expressing wants anything else?

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The impact of language difficulties at home and in the community

> Consider how language difficulties affect: sharing news asking for help sharing ideas answering questions expressing feelings making friends talking with whānau/family expressing wants anything else?

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Other risks

Children’s language difficulties may have an impact on their:

•behaviour(Snow & Powell , 2004; 2008).

•social and emotional development

self-esteemestablishing peer relationships.

(Jerome, Fujiki, Brinton, & James, 2002)

What helps children with language difficulties?

• Frequent engagement in interactions with responsive conversational partners.

• We know from the research that responsive conversational partners :– wait for the child to initiate or respond– talk about the child’s interests– balance questions with comments– provide models– give constructive feedback.

What is Language?

In pairs:

What is language in 3 words only?

Language Model

Form or syntax

Meaning or

semantics

Use or pragmatics

Three components of language

• What

• How

• Why

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• Content of what is understood and expressed.

• Includes vocabulary: labels (nouns) action words (verbs) describing words (adjectives)

• The meaning of the message.

What

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• Content is understood and expressed in various ways.

• May involve pointing, gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, sounds, reaching, actions, pictures.

• Children might use signs, speech sounds, words or sentences.

• Includes interaction skills, such as taking turns, and the ability to start, maintain and finish a conversation.

How

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• The reason for communicating.• Includes understanding and using language for

purposes such as: following instructions questioning learning new information responding greeting gaining attention commenting giving instructions re-telling Protesting.

Why

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Language steps

• Early words user

• Word combiner.

• Early sentence user.

• Complex sentence user.

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• Follows familiar instructions, eg, “Get your coat.”

• Responds to simple questions, eg, “What’s this?”, “Where’s …?”

• Single word stage … uses up to 50 words.

• A single word conveys a whole message.

Early words user (think 1-2 years)

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• Follows instructions with two key words, eg. “Put the book on the shelf”.

• Understands what things are used for, eg. lunch box holds their lunch.

• Combines two words together, eg. “Bye Mark”, “Daddy gone”, “More drink”.

• Makes simple requests, eg. “My turn?” “What’s that?”

Word combiner (think 2-3 years)

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• Follows instructions with two related steps without cues.

• Understands a variety of questions eg, ‘who’, ‘why’, ‘where’.

• Uses sentences of three or more words – may not be grammatically correct or complete.

• Talks about objects and activities that are not present, eg, their bike at home.

Early sentence user (think 3-4 years)

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• Follows instructions with two unrelated steps.

• Understands a variety of concepts eg. big, bigger, biggest.

• Retells a sequence of events using grammatically correct sentences most of the time.

• Listens to simple stories and answers related questions, eg. ‘when’

Complex sentence user (think 4-5 years)

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Language steps

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Complex sentence user

Early sentence user

Word combiner

Early words user

• Participator.

• Responder.

• Do my own thing.

• Reserved communicator.

Conversational styles

There are 4 styles

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Responsiveness31

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• Children who initiate and take part in interactions.

• They are responsive and will try (and keep trying) to communicate.

• Adults might describe them as “easy to talk to”.

Participator

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• Children rarely start the conversation.

• They may find it easier to respond more to adults than their peers.

• Adults might say the child “takes a while to warm up”.

Responder

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• Children mostly communicate about their interests and needs.

• Rarely respond to attempts to engage them in conversation.

• Adults might think they are “in their own world”.

Do my own thing

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• Children often have little or no response to your efforts to engage them.

• Children rarely initiate and show little interest in people or objects in their environment.

• Adults find it difficult to engage the child.

Reserved communicator

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A teacher’s role

Teachers are significant conversational partners in a child’s life.

Talk is the central tool of teachers’ trade. With it they mediate children’s activity and experience, and help them make sense of learning, literacy, life, and themselves.Johnston, 2004

Implications for teachers

Critical relationship between oral language and learning - means close attention to speaking and listening skills is necessary

Students with less developed oral language skills need more teacher time, explicit instruction, and more opportunities to talk to support their learning.

Need to consider oral language requirements of learning tasks.

Implications for teaching include –1. waiting time, 2. clarification , 3. links been their use of strategies for spoken and written language.

Where’s the time?

Knowledge of the learner

Teachers need extensive and continually developing knowledge of their students

Not all children need focused oral language assessments

Contexts for gathering data

What should an assessment process involve

Commonly used standardised assessment tools.

Scaffolding students learning

To help a child participate in classroom talk, need to know if they understanding this way of speaking. Can do this by: looking for signs that a student hasn’t understood (watch facial expression, listen for signs of hesitation)Encourage to ask questionsAsk to restate an instruction or idea or ask to explain to another studentEstablish a signal (thumbs up) as a non-verbal way for quieter students to signal they need something clarifying. Repetition is a powerful way to scaffold oral learning

What are the features of a great conversation?

• An opportunity to: talk ask questions or clarify.

• A shared understanding and context.• A shared interest.• Ideas are listened to, acknowledged and

valued.• One speaker does not dominate the talking

time.• The conversation reaches a natural end.

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What does the research tell us about classroom conversations?

• Most of the talk in classrooms is teacher talk.• Research in New Zealand new entrant classrooms

found that:

> teachers’ talk made up 76% of classroom talk

> teachers’ requests for information and actions made up 60% of their classroom talk

> children’s questions ranged from 2% to 8% of their total talk.

(Doell , 2005) 44

Initiation, response, feedback (IRF)

Initiation (I)

Response (R)

Feedback (F)

Teacher: “What day is it today?”

Child: “Tuesday.”

Teacher:(optional) “That’s right it is Tuesday today.”

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Importance of follow-ups

“The most powerful single moderator that enhances achievement is feedback.”

(Hattie, 1999, p. 9)

Feedback must be constructive and provide information about how and why the child understands or misunderstands.

New Zealand research found that constructive feedback was not used frequently.

• Approximately 20% of children’s responses received feedback.• 63% of the feedback was constructive.

(Doell, 2005)

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Deliberate acts of teachingDeliberate use of interactional strategies is crucial to student

achievement.

These strategies are effective across all curriculum areas

Different types of deliberate acts of teaching are : Modelling, prompting, questioning, giving feedback,

telling, explaining directing

Classroom talkWhat teachers need to consider when planning

Look at classroom talk in terms of: • social language, • independent listening, • independent speaking • discussion.

Social language - the way we use language to engage with people in social settings, particularly the form

and use of holding a conversation

Formulaic phrases and expressions need to repeated frequently by teachers and students to embed them into everyday talk

There are established ways of initiating, joining, ending conversation and introducing new topics.

In conversations partners have to work at making sense of things, responding, checking for meaning

Teachers can support the many uses of social language through explicit instruction, which includes explaining, modelling and creating language opportunities. How?

Independent listening– the ability to listen to extended talk and retain information to recall without the

support of a conversational partner

Progression through school requires the student to listen for longer periods of time without responding immediately.

Children at school need to develop skills when listening to text.

Teachers can effectively scaffold development of independent listening. When reading txt teachers can :

1) control the length of time 2)Use strategies such as summarising what has happened so far3)Encourage students to make connections with other texts4)Use a graphic organiser to help keep track of events and characters in a story read over several sessions

Independent speaking– the ability to use extended talk (retelling a story, news, or express an idea) without support of a

conversational partner.

Independent speaking requires the speaker to use precise and sophisticated language to ensure they convey their message clearly

Some students develop independent speaking skills easily

Some don’t - Teacher can help develop independent speaking by:

1. Providing opportunities to recall/ retell events that are important to them2. Providing scaffolding3. Use routines such as do and review (locke and beech 05)4. Use wordless picture books to encourage narrative talking5. Allow time for students to practice and become competent6. Notice when a child uses new vocabulary and language structures.

Discussions - Are the purposeful learning conversations that help thinking and learning to develop

Within a discussion students learn to build knowledge and understanding, expand vocabulary, learn new ways of expressing ideas and develop critical thinking. Teachers can support students learning before and during discussions by:

1. Teaching the protocols of group interactions2. Allow time for initiation, response and reflection3. Carefully scaffolding instructions to encourage purposeful talk4. Monitoring groups5. Providing feedback

Types of discussion – group discussions, paired discussions, think pair and share and using buddies.

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

StoryTalk Organiser

• Contributes to a literate environment• Child-directed, play-based event• Narrative discussion (photos or drawing)• Print awareness• Enriched language• Phonological awareness• Sound production

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Activities• Sandpit Volcano• Vegetable faces• Chickens hatching• Outside play• Dress-ups• Building blocks• Argument

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Narrative discussion (during activity)

Focus on the communicative intent of the speaker /writer.

• Talk about photos• Use sequencing

Use:• Commenting• Blank’s levels of questioning

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Print awarenessFocus on the writingprocess.• Write the story together.

Use and comment on:• Speech bubbles• Left right• Space between each word• Words vs a sentence

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Enriched languageFocus on wordmeaning, grammar andsentence length.• Expand sentences.Use:• past tense to retell• future tense to predict• adjectives

Phonological awarenessFocus on listening tothe sounds spoken.• Look at words in the

story.

Use:• syllables• rhyming• first and last sounds• letters

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Sound productionFocus on the spokenproduction of words. • Choose a sound.

Use words to describe:• body part used• length (long/short)• voice (soft/noisy)

PrepTalk Project, Jenny Matthews and Catriona Pine, EQ SLPs, 2006

Discussion time

• Chose an activity to could use with the StoryTalk oral language organiser.

• Discuss how you would apply it in your class.

• Give feedback and ideas to whole group.

Building vocabularyVocabulary - develops in many different ways

1. learn words associated with topics, contexts and environments. 2. Extend the range of words known3. Knowledge of morphology generates new forms of words4. Understand words in a greater depth

Building academic languageAcademic language – • is likely to be associated with abstract concepts - ‘fairytale’ ‘explain’ • Has specialised vocabulary and language structures - ‘uppercase’• Uses general vocabulary of academic language - ‘task’ ‘learning goal• Includes more specialised vocabulary of discourse structures of the

curriculum – measure, beat, order

Time for a role-play

Ultracrepidarian

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ULTRACREPIDARIAN:

One who speaks or offers opinions on matters beyond their knowledge.

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What helped you engage in the interaction?• Introducing the topic.• Making links with known information.• Talking slowly and repeating.• Using visual supports.• Sharing relevant information.• Sticking to the point!• Maintaining eye contact.• Responding to body language.• Encouraging questions.

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Summary – How to engage children in conversations

• Be face-to-face with children.• Respond to children’s attempts to initiate.• Notice children who are feeling ‘left out’ or

uncomfortable.• Pause to give time for responses.• Make comments and wait for the child to initiate

a comment.• Repeat and go slow.• Provide encouraging and explicit feedback.

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Workshop evaluation

Thank you for participating in this workshop.

Please take some time to complete the evaluation form.

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