Collaborative Learning
EAL Friendly,
Language Conscious
Learning Resources
Hereford
5th July2010
Lev Vgotsky
•The construction
of knowledge is a
social process
Douglas Barnes
•Presentational talk
•Exploratory
talk:constructing
new meaning
Neil Mercer
•Symmetrical talk
•Asymmetrical talk
Progress in putting talk at the
heart of learning
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Andrew Wilkinson - “Oracy” - 1965
Harold Orton - English dialect survey
Britton, Barnes, Rosen 1974
ILEA Collaborative Learning Project
1983
• Language in the National Curriculum
• Oracy Project
Decline of talk in the classroom
• 1993 LINC banned and Oracy
Project closed down.
• “Standard English where
appropriate” replaced by “Standard
English”
Some good news
• Oracy, Dialogic teaching and the
Cambridge Primary Review
(Robin Alexander)
• Exploratory talk (Neil Mercer/Lyn
Dawes)
Whole class discussion: example 1
Teacher: OK. Looking at the text now I want you please to
tell me what tense the first paragraph is in.
Girl:
The past tense.
Teacher: Yes it’s in the past tense. How do you know it’s in the past
tense?
Girl:
Because it says August 1990.
Teacher: You know by the date it’s in the past tense, but you know by
something else you know, you know by the doing words in the
text that change. What’s a doing word? What do we call a
doing word David?
David: A verb.
Teacher: A verb good. Will you give me one verb please out of this first
paragraph. Find one verb in this paragraph. Stephen?
Stephen: Rescued.
Teacher: Rescued, excellent, excellent and that’s in the past tense.
(Hardman, 2007)
Whole class discussion: example 2
Teacher reads text :
'Ten to twenty Daddy-long-legs can live together in this cage.
It is fun to watch then at night. They are more active then.
They rest during the day. If you look into your Daddy-longlegs cage when they are resting, your shadow will wake them
suddenly. Then they will scamper round the cage, bouncing up
and down in their funny dance.
A few minutes later, they will all be resting quietly again.’
Whole class discussion: example 2 contd.
Teacher: Who has a question?
Susan: How many spiders can fit in a cage?
Reggie: It didn't tell.
Susan: Yes it did.
Justin: Reggie doesn't think it told us.
Susan: Charlie?
Charlie: About ten or so.
Susan: Mara?
Mara: Ten to twenty.
Teacher: Ten to twenty. Daryl…what question would you ask?
Daryl: If you came by and looked, if you looked in the Daddy
Long Legs cage, what would the Daddy-long-legs do? Justin?
Whole class discussion: example 2 contd.
Justin: Your shadow would wake him up and then
they would start scampering around and...
Mara: And in a little bit all of them will lay down
and go back to sleep again.
Daryl: He kind of left something out
Teacher: What did he leave out?
Daryl : When they bounce up and down
Teacher : In a funny dance, right. That was a good question
Daryl. And Justin, I like the way you brought in the
use of shadow.
Build on prior knowledge
Move from concrete to abstract
Ensure everyone works with
everyone else
Extend social language into
curriculum language
Provide motivating ways to go over
the same thing more than once
How does collaborative learning help
construction of new meaning?
Visual/kinesthetic support for concept
development
Opportunities to value prior knowledge
Supportive environments to formulate new
ideas
Opportunities to rework/reword ideas and
provide time for reflection
How does collaborative learning help
thinking?
Opportunities to revisit learning in attractive
ways
Templates for pupils to develop their own
activities
Scaffolds talk at all levels simultaneously
Provides tasks that model thinking processes
Transformation of information
Activities that provide access to
the curriculum, opportunities to
practice predictable language
structures and improve social
relations
Build on prior knowledge
• Buzz groups/talk partners
• Information gap
Move from concrete to abstract
• Key visuals/graphic organisers
• Humanising the abstract
Some key visuals
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Chart
Grid
Venn diagram
Tree diagram
Sequencing line
Time line
Cycle
• Diamond Nines
• Sorting table
• Tracks
Everybody working with
everybody
Create different roles and then jigsaw!
How do you jigsaw?
Move social language into
curriculum language
Provide motivating ways to go
over the same thing more once
How are activities planned?
• What do we want the children to know?
• What kinds of thinking do we hope they will
practice?
• What kinds of language do they need? Necessary
language and potential language?
• What key visuals best produce the thinking and
the language?
• Can we make our activity collaborative/sociable?
Here is an example!!
• We want children to
consider the different
habitats of animals.
• Where do they live?
• What is it like there?
• Why do they live
there?
• How do they survive
and/or thrive?
What key visual will help their thinking?
A sorting grid or chart.
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This can be made into a game.
You need 4 people, one baseboard and two sets of cards (different colours.)
Work with a partner to make a team of two.
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Shuffle your cards and place them in a pile facing down.
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Take it in turn to turn over your top card and decide where to put it on the board.
team gets four in row vertically, horizontally or diagonally.
• The winning
• Decide whether to have challenges or a checking system.
Collaborative Learning and
the National Forest
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Inspired by a vision
Fits in where there is space
Committed to growth
Scattered outcrops all over the
place
• Plans to cover the whole country
Go to
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/her
eford.html
For links to all the resources you
have seen today including the
powerpoint.