Using Speech to Structure and Develop Learning
Speeches and
debates, presentations, conversations, Q & A sessions, hot-seating,
interviews or just plain talk, dialogue has always played a central, and maybe
crucial, part of my lessons. For me, classroom dialogue not only provides
students with opportunities to learn but allows me to model the thought
processes whilst deconstructing texts, and finally lets me explore their
interpretations as much as my own.
Mercer
suggests that speech is crucial and that the ‘prime aim of education ought to
be to help children learn to use language effectively as a tool for thinking
collectively’, and later suggests that
the development and acquisition of spoken language can be linked to
intellectual development. If we accept
this, then the nature of classroom dialogue must be structured and scaffolded
as tightly as any written work, but I believe that it must also be done in such
a way as to maintain the natural fluidity and, perhaps, the ‘randomness’ of
speech to recognise those very elements that we draw on in everyday
conversation.
Mercer
summarises the key concerns of talk as:
·
Talk - of
the right quality and depth – develops logic and reasoning, assists in
conceptual understanding and in reading comprehension.
·
Many
children do not access a wide enough experience of spoken forms outside of the
school environment for this development to be assured.
·
From
experiencing different forms and types of talk, students need to connect it to
the correct functional skills and situational examples of how to construct arguments,
jointly reflect on and solve problems and comprehend a range of texts, most
importantly non-fiction.
Our experience
as teachers tells us that students learn best when they are able to develop
their ability to link talk and work together and when we are able to both model
and scaffold forms of good practise and the wider expectations outside of the
classroom. While the participation of
the teacher, as being the point of authority and knowledge, can have a negative
impact, and allow students to feel that their input is ultimately irrelevant,
if I allow their train of thought to derail occasionally and follow the
direction that they wish to take it in I have often found that this gives them
confidence. It can also open up a wide
range of references and connections that otherwise would have been lost. With a practised class it is easy enough to
draw them back to the original point once they have exhausted their ideas –
alternatively, it may lead onto an entirely different way of reading something
and can allow students to test ideas before committing to them.
Talk is not
necessarily just talk, both social and educational talk takes place in our
classrooms, equally as valid as each other, and Mercer and Hodgekinson,
handily, identify the different forms of
speech that take place and the ones that we should be encouraging students to
recognise and consider. By exploring the
necessary forms and mannerisms of each then students are able to more readily
recognise what is required from them, adapting and shifting styles,
vocabularies and structures where needed.
·
Social Talk:
used to develop relationships amongst students, encouraging of group identities
and of exploring emotional reactions to both discussion topics and to each other. In this type of talk, students can learn the
meaning behind words through emotional tone and diction.
·
Exploratory
Talk: used to more formally test and explore new ideas and practise the
application of theories and ideas. This
relies on the first stage of social talk being in place to provide students
with the emotional strength and supportive network to challenge others’ ideas,
to revise their thinking and share ‘half-baked’ ideas.
·
Presentation
Talk: used to present ideas to groups but, in contrast to the informal nature of
social talk, with a specific - and perhaps formal - purpose and audience in
mind.
·
Meta-talk:
used to explore and discuss the thinking processes and to consider talk as a
thing that can in turn be analysed and explored.
·
Critical Talk:
used to critique pupils own views and of the views around them and allows
students to raise academic thought processes.
Recently, I
have begun providing classes with slides naming the type of talk they would be
using and for what purpose to highlight and emphasise the skills that they
would be developing beyond the task itself.
This has been effective for some forms of talk – exploratory,
presentation and critical – but for others has not seen the same success, as
students seem to have been placing their own judgement on the relevance of the
different forms that they use, suggesting that their own reflection and
evaluation of their abilities takes place at a deeper level than they might
even realise.
Meta-talk
has been the hardest to engage students’ responses as they seem to struggle
with the concept that we talk about talk – in much the same way, I have found,
that they find it difficult to think about what they have thought. In attempts to counter this I have used this
as a discursive plenary. To discuss what
challenged them or how they felt about expressing their ideas.
Organising Group Talk:
As well as
the Kagen structures and activities we have explored in CPD, there are a number
of other activities we can use to organise group discussion, many of which can
be established early on in the year and then revisited quickly and easily with
little additional work – I tend to have a worksheet or visual slide I can
re-use each time. Ginnis’ ‘The Teachers
Toolkit’ is another great source of activities that can be used to structure
and scaffold classroom talk.
Activities
such as:
·
Listening
Triads – Pupils work in groups of three with allocated roles: a Talker, a
Questioner and a Recorder who reports back.
The Talker speaks on the topic or activity while the Questioner is
expected to listen and question them on what they do and why they think
something. The Recorder, much like a
secretary, listens and makes notes that they will feedback to the wider
audience. This allows the teacher to
structure the Recorder to listen for key phrases and spoken features.
·
Envoys –
after group activities one person from each group visits another to share ideas
and then reports back to the original group.
·
Market
Seller – Once the activity is finished one person remains behind to share ideas
while the others in the group visit other ‘sellers’ who will provide them with
ideas to feedback to the original group.
·
Snowball – Pairs
brainstorm and discuss ideas, before doubling up to fours to extend ideas and
then again to eight and so on and so on. Eventually this can lead to whole
class debate. This allows students to
prepare what they will say and how they will say it in a debate.
·
Jigsaw – Before
an activity takes place the ‘home’ group divides themselves and allocates a
section to each member. The experts for
each section then join other experts to complete the activity before returning
to their original groups and ‘jig-sawing’ ideas together.
·
Observer/Listener
– This can develop the class’ use of critical talk. While an activity takes place one student
sits aside to watch and listen to each group and the ways in which they
interact, the ways in which they speak and their group dynamics. Feeding back can raise awareness of their
ability to work together as their sense f language being used critically and
reflectively.
·
Team Puppet
– Groups nominate a puppet that they will control in a debate. The puppet speaks for the team, but they can
call a halt to the proceedings and give the puppet further instructions to work
on or ways to respond when the activity continues.
Scaffolding group talk:
Didau left
some interesting points to take up and use to scaffold talk, such as sentence
starters and speaking frames, though the primary aim of them is to develop our
students critical language and not necessarily to support the weakest students
that struggle to verbalise their ideas, or – the students who are the real bane
of talk in class – the shy ones.
By
developing our students ability to talk confidently, accurately and with mature
sophistication, in both the classroom and in real life situations, we can only
give them greater independence and cognitive ability to see them through to
greater success beyond the ‘be-all and end-all’ exam. Holistic and wishy-washy it might be, but it
is what I believe.
Bibliography:
Barton, G. (2013)
Don’t call it Literacy: What every teacher needs to know, Routledge
Diadau, D.
(2014) The Secret of Literacy: Making the implicit, explicit, Crown House Publishing
Ginnis, P.
(2002) The Teacher’s Toolkit, Crown House Publishing
Mercer, N.
(2002) ‘Developing Dialogues’, in Wells, G. & Claxton, G. (2002) Learning
for life in the C21st: Sociocultural perspectives on the future of education,
Oxford: Blackwell
Mercer, N
& Hodgekinson, S. (2008) Exploring Talk in School, London: Sage
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