Sample Junior Oral Language Programme to address identified needs.
English Achievement Objective: Speaking and listening will be integrated into talk to write, talk to read, and talk for maths.
Speaking: Students should: converse and talk about personal experiences; tell stories, recite, or read aloud.
Listening: Students should: listen and respond to others, texts and relate them to personal experience.
Processes: Students should identify, describe and use commonly used verbal and non-verbal features in a range of texts and begin to adapt spoken language; asking
questions and respond.
KLST data highlighted there was a need to focus on sequencing, language processing, instruction and expressive language. Activities will be integrated across all curriculum
areas.
Resources and support
Expected Outcomes – Why?
Strategy – How?
Assessment/Monitoring
needed
Sequencing
 Students will be able to sequence 3
ideas (pictures or events) in order to talk
to the sequence.
 Students will be able to sequence 3
ideas (pictures or events) in order to
write to the sequence.
Instruction
 Students will be able to follow 2-step
directions independently.
 Students will be able to give 2-step
directions.
Language Processing
 Students will be able to identify
attributes of objects/items.
 Students will be able to identify
differences between objects/items.
 Students will be able to identify
similarities between objects/items.
Additional notes:
 Encourage students to discuss each picture to ascertain why it needs to
be first…second etc. Pictures can be discussed in isolation and then put
together as a sequence.
 Use a 2- picture sequence (and increase to 3) and order the pictures.
Use language that depicts time..First..then; moving to
First…then…finally. This can be modelled orally. Students can then use
the format to write their stories.
 Use the current science topics to take photos and use as a sequencing
activity (similarly with guided reading books).
 Online sequencing activity http://www.turtlediary.com/preschoolgames/esl-efl-games/picture-sequencing.html
See Talk to Learn for simple
pictures to sequence.
 Model giving directions by using clear and simple language.
 Use of student name before giving the directions i.e. “Sam, get your
See notes and book
blue pencil and put it on the round table”. This helps to gain and focus
attention.
Classroom observation
Barrier game notes on Owhata
Literacy wiki.
 Use role plays to practice giving directions.
 Play Barrier games using easily accessible and familiar classroom
equipment.
 Model attributes during maths i.e. size, shape, colour.
 Categorize items as above or functional use.
 Activities from Oral Language.
Teddies, BSM
The School Entry Assessment (SEA) Tell Me: A Collaborative Language Activity , pg 21 gives an outline of the assessment around retelling stories. However, the suggested ideas can be adapted to be
used as supporting material for oral language development within the classroom.
Adapted from Collaborative Action plan from RTLB.
Purpose: Exploring Oral Language
Talking to Each Other
Strands: Listening and Speaking
Levels
Possible Contexts
1 and 2
3 and 4
5 and 6
7 and 8
Everyday observations and monitoring
in:
 Classroom
 Playground
 Discussion groups
 Conferences
 Conversations
 Activity groups
Study of oral language text types.
Topic study, such as relating to others.
Role play of characters in history.
Study of a shared novel.
Book review.
A study of examples of how speakers
adapt to audience and purpose in
conversations.
A study of how spoken conversations
differ from their written forms.
Suggested Activities
Students’ conversations are taped and
assessed against developmental
criteria.
Students hear, and are encouraged to
speak in conversations.
Students’ home language is valued as a
starting point for learning the
conventions for talking to each other.
Teacher and students examine direct
speech in cartoon and comic texts.
They insert dialogue in wordless texts.
In whole class or discussion groups,
teachers and students read a text and
choose a character. They:
 Make mind maps and then a cartoon
strip with direct speech;
 Retell the same event in another
form;
 Compare the language features and
construction.
Following modelling, students record a
person telling an anecdote. The
anecdote is also written, and the two
versions are compared.
Comparing oral and written language:
 Teacher and students listen to a
recording of someone relating an
event or experience.
 They transcribe part of the text.
 The speaker records the same event
in writing.
 The texts are compared and
differences analysed.
Teacher and students listen to each
other in conversation, noting the use of
verbal and non verbal features.
Terminology
Greetings. Response. Feedback.
Minimal responses. Turn-taking. Verbal
and non-verbal cues.
Verbal and visual (non-verbal) cues.
Discourse markers. Intonation.
Responses.
Oral language at a distance:
 Students volunteer for telephonists’
roles.
 Cards offer other students a range of
possible callers.
 Telephonists take phone calls and
respond to callers such as friend, DJ,
sports celebrity, prime minister,
principal, bank manager.
 Peers note changes in language
structure, delivery, and content in
different responses and examine
how speakers adapt to audience and
purpose.
Standard and vernacular. Politeness
forms. All previous terminology.
Purpose: Exploring Oral Language
In discussion groups for topics, maths
Possible Contexts
activities, developmental activities,
sharing written work, trips and special
occasions.
In oral focus time.
Suggested Activities
In discussion groups:
 Teacher models listening skills and
behaviours.
 Students chart listening behaviours.
 In groups of 3 – listener, speaker,
motivator – they practise listening
behaviours, change roles, and repeat
activity.
Teacher models and students use oral
language conventions. They work in
groups taking roles of speaker,
Discourse markers. Repetition.
Grammatical structures. All previous
terminology.
Strands: Listening and Speaking
Study of different genres, such as myths
and legends; storytelling; fiction and
non-fiction.
Study of local community.
Oral language focus, such as:
 The language of persuasion;
 Adapting language to the audience
and purpose.
Students study a range of myths,
legends, tales and local anecdotes,
exploring language features. They:
 Discuss the conventions of
storytelling;
 Create and present orally a myth or
legend of their own, telling about a
local event or geographic feature and
describing and justifying language
choices.
Students listen to a range of other oral
Teacher and students explore and
discuss appropriateness and style in a
range of oral presentations such as:
 Groups select an audience –
principal, peer, parent.
 They prepare and present an
argument proposing an event like an
end of exam party, showing
understanding of language choices
appropriate to the purpose and
audience.
Oral language focus, such as:
 Studey of a them;
 Study of register and slang;
 The nature and causes of language
changes.
Teachers and students listen to, read,
and view texts around a theme, such as
war. They:
 Describe, analyse and evaluate
language features, noting words and
phrases particular to the theme or
context;
 Study another context, such as sport,
identifying and comparing slang,
jargon, register and language
features in that theme.
Terminology
recorder, motivator, listener, change
roles and repeat activity.
texts. They:
 Compare each with the conventions
of story telling;
 Present the myth in another text
type, such as a report.
 They are assessed by peers and
assess themselves against agreed
criteria.
 Repeat the study in a new context,
such as pop music lyrics in the 20th
century.
Verbal and visual (non-verbal) cues.
Questioning, turn taking, greeting,
intonation.
Verbal and visual (non-verbal) cues,
intonation, appropriateness of verbal
presentation.
Intonation. Verbal and non verbal
features. Denotation and connotation.
Vernacular.
Intonation. Rhythm. Verbal and non
verbal features. Register. Slang.
Standard and vernacular.