Oracy In the Classroom   30/07/2017

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Create discussion guidelines:

• Always respect each other's ideas.
• Be prepared to change your mind.
• Come to a shared agreement.
• Clarify, challenge, summarize, and build on each other's ideas.
• Invite someone to contribute by asking a question.
• Show proof of listening.  (important as this shows respect)

We need to teach children the different roles in a conversation:

• instigator - starts the conversation
• builder - builds on and develops further other people's ideas
• challenger - provides an argument
• clarifier - makes things clear (like a commentator)
• prober - asks questions to go deeper
• summarises

Activities that encourage speech

• talking points: students need to say 'I agree or I disagree because ...
• ghost reading: students takes turns to read but decide how long they read for
• collective writing: after writing on a topic students collectively talk about it, each choosing how much they say

English

• A similarity between these texts is…
• A difference between these texts is…
• The author's choice of X shows…

History

• In this era…
• This artifact shows that…
• This source illustrates that…
• This source is biased because…
• This source is more reliable because…

Art

• I like this picture because…
• I prefer the work of X because…
• The composition of this piece shows that…
• The techniques I have noticed are…

Science

• The results show that…
• The conclusion I have drawn is…
• There is a correlation between ... and ....
• An anomaly I noticed is…
• I have observed...

Notes from Behavioural Course

Individuals are more likely to grow, develop and make progress when they are in a postive environment that provides safety, support, structures and consistency.

The consequence can re-start the circle again if it is negative and done before student has desculated.

When a child says leave me alone …. leave them alone.

When you are upset and say to someone to leave them alone, you expect them to do this … the situation is the same for the child.

Positive responses

• Ignore inconsequential behaviours (annoying and repetative)
• Walk away and then re-engage - sometimes it is beeter to yet a staff member intervene. At other times, a brief cooling off period is more advantageous than an immediate response.
• Share feelings - but don’t show - acknowledge that you the individual need to cool down before discussing the situation
• Script a response - identify your ‘buttons’ and script a response to each
• Remain focused on the individual’s behaviour - keep conversation on the behaviour and not the student
• Self-talk - use an internal conversation to guide you eg ‘don’t take it personally,’ is the situation as bad as it appears,’ ‘ what is the individual wanting?’ and ‘what should I do.

AND

Stop - mentally interrupt any internal conversation before responding

Think - consider options and responses that have been pre-scripted

Analyise - decide on which strategy to utilise in this situation

Respond - choose the strategy and act

Response to Oppositional and Defiant Behaviour

• Making deals - Do not bargin
• Needing to have the last word (a strategy to have control where the individual tries to stop the conversation from ending) - Let them have it
• Blatant rule violation (an attempt to get you into an argument and/or seek attention)  - temporarily ignore the behaviour and then give consequences later
• Constantly questioning ‘Why” (an attempt to control and prolong the conversation and sometimes challenge authority) - agree to answer but in their time not yours
• Playing one staff member against another (pointing out inconsisitencies and using it to rationalise their behaviour) - follow the schedule and communicate with colleagues
• Refusal to comply (trying to take control by challenging you; a very difficult behaviour to understand as the indivdual’s pointn of view is correct (they cannot be made to comply) - review their choices (3 choices are good as they really have to think)
• Loopholes (complying with the letter of the law but not its spirit) - provide specific instructions

The kids who need to most love will always ask for it in the most unloving way -  Russel Barkely

Paul Nation's 4-strands

 Paul Nation talks about four strands that need to be balanced:

Meaning- focused input (listening or reading, focus on communication, comprehension of the input and just a few unfamiliar language items. E.g. listening to stories, guided reading etc.)

Language-focused learning (receptive or productive, focus on language features, conscious attempt to learn a language item. E.g. dictation, vocabulary learning, pronunciation drill, text analysis, guided speaking etc.)

Meaning-focused output (speaking or writing, focus on communication, production of comprehensible messages, opportunity to improve control or skill or language items. E.g. information gap activities, letter writing, role play. etc)

Fluency Development (receptive or productive, focus on communication, pressure to perform at a higher level than normal, no unfamiliar language items at all. E.g. speed reading, fast writing, repeated talks e.g. 321 activities etc.)  

I want to include these ideas when planning to make sure I cover them all. I definitely overlook fluency development and have never planned for this. 

I also found this interesting -

'... should include form focused instruction in the sound system, vocabulary, grammar and discourse areas. Form-focused learning can speed up learning, help learners to overcome barriers to language development and can have a positive effect on meaning-focused learning. It should take up about 25% of the learning time.  The language features focused on must be reasonably simple, be at an appropriate stage of development to benefit from the attention; and if the purpose of the learning is to make learning from meaning-focused input more effective, then it is sufficient to raise learners’ awareness of the item and its use. Language-focused practice does not usually lead directly to implicit knowledge of language that is needed for normal communication, it is more of a support for meaning-focused activities.'  

There is still a place for form learning, we just have to decide what is the focus, will learning form help to improve future learning or is it deviating from meaning.

This is from:

[Primary ESOL] ESOL Course Design - The first 10 principles: Primary ESOL Online Update, 3 July 2017 (emails)

To help with fluency I have chosen a sentence from each students writing that contains errors and I have rewritten it for them at the top of the page. Next session I will get them to write it as many times as they can in one minute, we will record the results and then repeat. This way they are fluently learning the correct grammar/vocab that they didn't know.