What?
As part of an optional PD we were given a chance to take
part in a PD session with the gurus of Literacy – Sheena Cameron and Louise
Dempsey. They spoke about the imporatnace of building an oral language filled
classroom, where children are encouraged to talk to each other, share their
opinions and make statemnet on whethter or not they agree or disagrre with the
topic, or others points of view. They
discussed how the evidence of a good oral language programme can facilitate
good written language skils.
We were given a variety of ways to incorporate oral language
into our literacy programme – through questioning during reading, using ‘talk
moves’ and making more opportunities within your learning programme for
‘Think-Pair-Share. There were slides showing ideas for using ice blocks
sticks to prompt children to repsond to the questions so that you know that
they are becoming more ‘active listeners’. By encouarged to be more active when
listening will in turn, create more engagement. Some ideas to do this are –
Think Pair Share (with a buddy), Think Pair Square ( 2 sets of buddies) or
Think Pair Record (using a form of recording the other person’s ideas – graphic
organiser, video, Seesaw photo and comment/caption). I also liked the idea of their
question tools – photocopied sliders with question prompts, using open and
closed question starters.
So What?
The benefits as tracked by Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey
with their work in some South Auckland schools, were that the children came to
school using one word answers and that by encouraging them to speak in whole
sentences, the writing improved. I could
see in the video that many of the children were of Asian, Pacifica and mostly
Maori descent, I can appreciate that for ESOL children and for children with
background where the language may be somewhat poor, there would be a greater
need for the children to speak in whole sentences.
In one of the videos, a teacher had used a ‘no-hands’
policy, where children could say their point of view but there was no hands up
waiting for turns, the children needed to wait for a brek in the conversation
and speak. There were time when 2 children started at the same time, and one
would stop. There was very little ‘Teacher- Talk”, one class the teacher did
interject to pose another point of view and to get others to contribute. It was
amazing that the same children weren’t always speaking, was this because it was
rehearsed for the video, being a small class of 20, or because the teacher has
really worked on creating a classroom culture where speaking and active
listening is the norm?
What next?
One thing that I have changed already is that I have stuck
stickers on the ends of my ice block sticks so I turn them now instead of
taking them out. After Louise mentioned
that one teacher had done that because when the children had been asked about
the use of the iceblocks sticks, they said that if the their name had been
called then they didn’t need to listen. Another tip that I took was, to use
buddy time for my warm ups for maths, whereas before I would call out the
question and the children would manipulate the digit cards, now they work with
a buddy to improve their number knowledge. It has given me more time to rove
and check-in with those who need help.
Also I need to create a classroom culture of more active
listeners. To do this I need to make more opportunities for the children to
‘talk’ and ‘share’. I liked the ideas of using moreThink Pair Share (with a
buddy), Think Pair Square (2 sets of buddies) or Think Pair Record (using a
form of recording the other person’s ideas – graphic organiser, note taking,, video, Seesaw
photo and comment/caption). The sharing
part needs to be a bigger focus to create active listeners by telling the
children that they need to be listening to what is said as they will sharing
their ‘buddies’ ideas. Using Seesaw and
videos such as a news cast on the views of the group – not their own views. I
am thinking that I could use this as a platform to create pieces of writing to
persuade later in the term to work with our universal theme of conflict.
Another tip - Try One
Thing for One Month in One Subject. So let’s see what happens...
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