Hi Janet,
I would also like to thank you for the discussion about oral
language. It appears that oral language often gets missed during the many
'professional learning' discussions that teachers have.
I have found 'Teaching Language in Context' by Beverley
Derewianka and Pauline Jones (Oxford University Press) to be an excellent
resource/reference book for oral language. It would be really good to hear of
other reference books that ESOL/classroom teachers may be using.
It is great to see a new oral language resource - I
look forward to viewing it. Thank you Jane!
Lynne Carlin
Edendale Primary
On 15 March 2016 at 20:47, Jane van der Zeyden <janez@clear.net.nz>
wrote:
Hi Janet
I am so happy to see that there is discussion going on again
about the importance of developing oral language competence and proficiency.
All too often in my work in schools I see literacy programmes both in
mainstream classes and in intervention and support programmes where oral
rehearsal for writing or talk about texts in reading is minimal and
consequently our English Language learners are not scaffolded enough to achieve
the task successfully.
For all students oral language is an absolutely vital aspect
of learning. We need to remember that talking is our primary thinking tool.
There are so many reasons why being articulate is a highly desirable skill.
Based on my work with English Language learners along with my literacy work, I
have written a book called The Essential Oral Language Toolkit because I
know that many teachers struggle with how to integrate focussed and
strategically designed oral language tasks across the curriculum. My belief is
that oral language should be an integral part of all learning areas and
that we need to deliberately structure oral language tasks in order to ensure
that students are learning new language rather than sticking within the known.
The book is a practical guide for teachers at all levels of Primary and Intermediate
schools.
If anyone is interested in my book there is more information
on my website www.tools4teachers.co.nz
and it can also be ordered from there.
Let's continue the conversations about oral language because
I think our ESOL community are the people who have most knowledge about how to
structure oral language teaching and learning and we can play a pivotal role in
upskilling the wider education world.
Jane van der Zeyden
Literacy and ESOL facilitator
Tools 4 Teachers
On 14/03/2016, at 4:06 PM, Janet McQueen <pandjmcq@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi
everyone
I
know that the first term is often an interrupted one with school camps,
athletic sport days, swimming lessons and the Easter holidays but these also
provide many opportunities for language use. Oral language underpins much of
our communication so this will be the focus of today’s update.
First
I would like to welcome to our new members Natalie, Catherine, Laura and
Soazik, we hope that you will find membership valuable and feel free to ask
questions and to join our discussions.
Our
Primary ESOL Community
Thank
you to everyone who shared information on the APPA speech competitions in answer to Nan’s question.
Cath
also shared about the South Island, Mandarin speech competitions.
Kath
shared Dr Jannie van Hees- Bilingual Snippets in response to my last update on
supporting bilingual students’ transition to school.
(Remember
the archive username is eesollonline (2 x e and 2 x l) and the archive
password is - mailinglist.)
Oral
language
In
her Week 6 Literacy Online Weekly Update Sue Bridges challenged
us about how we teach oral language. Sue outlined why oral language is
important and stressed that oral language should be explicitly taught at all
levels of the New Zealand Education system. I would encourage you all to
read her update. (The password and username is the same as the one you use
for primary ESOL, see above.)
Sue
said teachers should consider whether the planned learning experience offers
the opportunity to i) apply/practise existing speaking and listening
skills, or ii) deliberate acts of teaching of
newly-introduced/developing oral skills. We need to integrate this across the
curriculum in authentic contexts. Sue encourages the use of explicit modelling
of oral language skills prior to students performing tasks, followed by ample
time to practice the skill and the provision of teacher feedback and
feedforward to the student’s, on their use of the skill.
Sue
“observed that for many older primary school children, speaking and
listening skills are assumed to have been previously established, and now can
be merely called upon. The oral language element is often covered in regular
news sharing and a few weeks of ‘speeches’. And yet so much about appropriate
use of register, pragmatics, word choice. pitch and so on can create difficulty
in communication for those who are not lucky enough to just ‘pick it
up’.”
ELLs
and Oral Language
Sue’s
observations fit with what we know to be best practice for English language
learners (ELLS).
The
Introduction booklet to the English Language Learning Progressions pages 21 – 22 says,
“Oral language is often as complex as written language and is sometimes more
difficult to process. It challenges the learner in different ways from written
language.” The following excerpts help to explain the oral language
challenge for ELLs.
An English language learner may not have an existing
basis in oral language on which to build English literacy skills. There are
many interrelated factors that may influence an English language learner’s
proficiency in oral language, including:
• the content of their previous English language
instruction (if any);
• the teaching approaches used in previous English
language instruction (if any);
• the age at which they begin (or began) learning
English;
• their level of confidence in speaking English.
…. All new English language learners face significant
challenges when speaking and listening to New Zealand English. At the same time
as they are learning the vocabulary and grammatical structures of the new
language, they’re also working to gain control over other features of oral
language. They need to learn the sounds of English words, the subtle meanings
conveyed by changes in tone and speed, and the differences in meaning that a
change in stress can make. (For example, “refuse”, with the stress on the first
syllable, is a noun that means “rubbish”, but “refuse”, with the stress on the
second syllable, is a verb that means “to say no to something”.) These are
called the prosodic features of a language. Prosodic features combine
with non-verbal language features, such as facial expressions, to create and
convey meaning, and both are culturally determined dimensions of the language.
It takes time to learn the significance of the prosodic features of a new
language. Some learners will need to adjust their prior learning of one variety
of English (such as American English) in order to learn New Zealand English,
which has its own distinct features of pronunciation and vocabulary. For
example, New Zealand English includes some words from te reo MÃ ori.”
“…When English language learners begin to speak English,
their first language is likely to have a strong influence on their grammar and
pronunciation (such as in stress patterns or accent). Many factors can
affect a learner’s speaking proficiency. Each time a learner speaks, what they
say will be affected not only by their knowledge of the language but also by
the sociocultural context, for example, whether they know the person they are
speaking to. The English language learner may also need to explore and discuss
the differences between non-verbal and prosodic features of their first
language (such as body language and intonation) and those of English, as these
features are often culturally specific. Because of the complexity of oral
language production, teachers (and other listeners) often need to allow
additional “wait time” to give learners a chance to initiate, respond, and
interact with others. English language learners should be encouraged to
continue to develop oral language skills in their first language and to use
critical-thinking skills (and other oral language skills) in their first
language to help them develop oral language in English. Cognitive academic
language proficiency (CALP) develops better when the first language develops
alongside the additional language.”
As
ELLs now make up about a quarter of all learners in New Zealand classrooms and
their numbers continue to grow it is important that all teachers know how to
explicitly teach oral language to ELLs. Recording a student’s progress on the
ELLP listening and speaking matrices will help us to check that a student is
making progress over time and to identify an appropriate next learning step.
Our job is then to plan how we will deliberately teach the necessary skills and
how we will incorporate the teaching and practice of that skill into daily
curriculum learning tasks, whilst scaffolding student to success.
As
Sue pointed out the job doesn’t finish at any particular year level but rather
we continuously build upon the students’ knowledge as they move up the school
system. It is a daily focus through all curriculum subjects through all parts
of the school day.
Back
in 2014 I wrote two weekly updates with some ideas and strategies on how to
teach oral language which you may like to check out again:
Sept 16, 2014 Weekly Update Key Instructional Ideas to
support oral language development
Sept 22, 2014 Weekly Update , Part two, Oral Language
Strategies
See
also this Guest post, Oral Language: To think, shape and convey ideas by Dr Jannie
van Hees, 16 October 2014 weekly update.
You
will also find useful suggestions on explicit, guided and independent learning
activities appropriate to r each level of language learning across different
curriculum areas in the Supporting Language Learning in Primary Schools (SELLIPS) booklets.
These make a great starting point for thinking about what type of support is
appropriate and how you might practically teach this in an age appropriate
manner.
The
English language Intensive Programme (ELIP) Years 1-6 and 7-13 will also help teachers to identify appropriate oral
interaction language features that may require explicit teaching , provide
models of these features and some suggested strategies for teaching them.
In
response to all of this my challenge is:
1. What
strategies do you advocate? What oral language strategies do you find most
successful? 2. Do you build multiple opportunities throughout the school day into your lessons for deliberately teaching and practising oral language skills?
3. Will there be even greater opportunities and challenges for quality oral language development in innovative /modern learning environments? What are the opportunities and challenges for ELLs? How can we personalise and manage these to give ELLs the chance to be the best communicators they each can be?
4. What further support do teachers in your school need in order to better teach oral language to ELLS? What are the gaps? How can they be filled?
Oral
language readings and links
Here
are a few additional oral language readings, and links that I have recently
discovered.
Using pair and group work to develop ELLs’ oral language
skills, by Diane Staehr Fenner and Sydney Snyder on Colorin
Colarado, posted November 17, 2014
Socratic Circles and the Common Core: An Introduction (Part I),
By Diane Staehr Fenner, Sydney Snyder on Colorin Colarado. (See also links to
part 2 and 3.)
Key
Strategies for Developing Oral Language, by Jeff Zwiers on Teaching Channel,
October 29, 2014 3:30 pm .
Why
are Academic Discussions So Important for our ELLs?, by Nicole Knight on
Teaching Channel October 24, 2014.
Video Series: Engaging ELLs in Academic Conversations, by
Lydia Breiseth on Colorin Colarado.
18 Pronunciation Sites and Apps for Language Learners
February 29, 2016 American TESOL.
Ten
Pre-Listening Activities, By Hall Houston, EFL Magazine, 26/02/2016.
Scaffolding Structures to
Support Academic Conversations for English Learners, REL West, West Ed
webinar, published November 2015.
Integrating pronunciation into
classroom activities, by
Barney Griffiths, Teaching English.
Top 10 Tips for Teaching Pronunciation in ESL classes, on
Busy Teacher.
How to start academic conversations, Jeff Zwiers and Marie
Crawford, in Educational Leadership, April 2009.
Other
Links
What are the hardest languages to learn?
by Sam Gendreau on Lingholic.
SIOP Activity: Right Away Questions,
Pearson SIOP Model on You Tube.
Closing
English Language Learner Gaps Early, Benjamin Heuston and Haya Shamir in
Language Magazine, April 2015, examine how adaptive learning software makes the
curriculum effective for English language learners worldwide.
What we talk about when we talk about best practices: Reading
and writing by Debra Josephson Abrams, Multibriefs, April 30, 2015.
I
hope that you all find something of interest in today's update. In the meantime
please continue to share your thoughts, questions and discussions. If you have
a question it is quite likely that someone else will be thinking the same
thing. So please ask. It is also very likely that someone else in the community
will be able to offer their suggestions, opinions and answers in reply.
Enjoy
your week
Janet
--
Janet McQueen
Facilitator: Primary ESOL community
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