One Step at Time: Presentation 1

TEACHING SPOKEN LANGUAGE: Why, What and How

Background

Why Spoken Language Matters

Teaching Spoken Language

What to Teach

How to Teach

Creating a Language-Learning Environment

Teaching Language Systematically

Making Language Teaching Manageable

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

BACKGROUND

One Step at a Time is:

 a structured teaching programme for developing spoken

language in the early years and primary school through the
active use of spoken language in the classroom

 a whole-school programme for children aged 3 and 9, but can

also be used with single classes and/or older children

 an all-needs programme, providing differentiated teaching for

all children in mainstream education

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

BACKGROUND

This session covers:

 why spoken language matters

 knowing what to teach

 knowing how to teach it

 making it manageable in the mainstream classroom

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHY SPOKEN LANGUAGE MATTERS

Spoken language is crucial for:

 communication

 teaching

 learning

 literacy

 thinking

 social and emotional development

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHY SPOKEN LANGUAGE MATTERS

Competence in spoken language is increasingly an issue for schools.

 Spoken language is particularly important in the early years and

continues to develop through the school years

 It is a crucial pre-literacy skill, and a continuing literacy-support skill

 Increasing numbers of children are coming into school lacking basic

spoken language skills

 The demands on their understanding and use of spoken language

increase as they progress through school

 Children who start behind are likely to fall further behind

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHY SPOKEN LANGUAGE MATTERS

Competency in spoken language needs to be:

 the main educational priority at ages 3 to 5

 a joint priority, with literacy, from 5 onwards

 for all children

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

TEACHING SPOKEN LANGUAGE

But spoken language is a complex system:

 not fully understood

 seldom included in teacher training

 difficult to teach in classroom settings

 because of the quantity and complexity of the language that
children need to know;
 and because the normal conditions of language learning are
difficult to reproduce in a mainstream classroom

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

TEACHING SPOKEN LANGUAGE

Teachers need to know:

 what to teach

 how to teach it

 how to manage it, as well as everything else

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH

Spoken language is huge and complex. To teach it effectively we have to

be selective.

We need an educational model that identifies:

 the essential language skills that children need for progress

through school

 in the order they need them for their learning

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH: Content

Vocabulary is vast, too big to assess or teach comprehensively, but key

elements include:
 early vocabulary
 the vocabulary of properties and relations
 the vocabulary of feelings and emotion
 topic vocabulary

Grammar is complex, difficult to assess, and probably impossible to teach

directly. Key elements include:
 question forms
 verb forms
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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH: Use

Conversation skills are crucial for:

 communication and social development
 teaching and learning
 other language skills

Listening skills are crucial for:

 learning
 understanding
 the development of reading
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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH: Use

Narrative skills (extended talk) are crucial for:

 coherent thought and expression
 development of writing

Discussion skills are crucial for:

 thinking
 social understanding
 emotional literacy

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH: Fluency

 Children also need fluency in all these skills.

 This means practice, repetition and over-learning.

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

WHAT TO TEACH

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

HOW TO TEACH

Spoken language is normally learnt through:

 close personal interaction

 active physical involvement, using

 familiar things and activities

 prompting, encouragement and reward

 repetition, repetition, repetition

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

HOW TO TEACH

These conditions are difficult to recreate in schools.

We need to reproduce them where we can, and compensate for them

where we cannot.

We can do this by:

 creating a language-learning environment

 providing systematic teaching of spoken language

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

CREATING A LANGUAGE-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

A language-learning environment is one where

 children’s talk, including spontaneous talk, is valued, not just

allowed but actively encouraged

 children feel secure, comfortable and confident, willing and

able to express themselves in whatever way they can

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

CREATING A LANGUAGE-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

A language-learning environment can be created by:

 developing a more interactive, conversational style of teaching
 using children’s talk as a way of teaching and learning, e.g.
 classroom discussion, Do and Review or Plan, Do and Review
 partner work and independent discussion groups
 maximising opportunities for informal conversation with
individual children
 making the most of those that exist
 creating new ones where we can
 and involving everyone

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

CREATING A LANGUAGE-LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Everyone includes parents. Schools should explain to parents:

the importance of spoken language for their children’s education

what they can do at home to help develop it

how One Step at a Time works and what it is trying to achieve,

how parents can help their children with specific skills at home

and provide opportunities for parents to work with children in the

classroom under staff guidance, where possible.

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

TEACHING LANGUAGE SYSTEMATICALLY

But schools can also teach spoken language

 using the same techniques that parents use to teach their

children

 but using them explicitly and systematically

 and therefore more efficiently and more effectively.

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

MAKING LANGUAGE TEACHING MANAGEABLE

To do this, schools and staff need something that will:

 take the difficulty and uncertainty out of language teaching

 guide them in what to teach, when to teach it, how to teach it,
and how to assess children’s development and progress

 embody the expertise needed to teach spoken language

 and enable staff to develop that expertise themselves through

active experience in the classroom

but above all

 be easy to implement and manage in mainstream classrooms

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

MAKING LANGUAGE TEACHING MANAGEABLE

Spoken language can be made more accessible to schools by using a

teaching programme that:
 identifies the skills most needed for progress in school
 and provides
 explicit teaching and learning objectives
 appropriate teaching techniques
 simple ways of assessing development and reviewing progress

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 Teaching Spoken Language: Why, What and How

MAKING LANGUAGE TEACHING MANAGEABLE

A teaching programme must also be:

 flexible: adaptable to the needs of different schools, different
teachers and different children
 easily manageable in the classroom:
 reflecting and supporting the wider curriculum
 building on existing classroom practice and activities
 without adding significantly to teachers’ workloads, or requiring
additional resources or special expertise

This is what One Step at a Time aims to do.

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