Back to contents
2.4 Developing spoken English
Key messages

Spoken English is both a tool for learning and a bridge to literacy.

Informal spoken English and written English use different vocabularies and structures.

Oral English usage can be viewed as a continuum from context embedded exploratory talk to
more formal spoken English – talk as process or talk as performance. The more formal
spoken English relates most closely to the language of school texts.

Low literacy background learners need to build a strong oral language base for literacy and to
develop skills and understandings about oral language that relate to purpose and context.
Relationship of spoken language to learning to read
As we read we begin to perceive patterns in spelling and the sound system, and to learn strategies
for working out how to read and the meanings of unknown words.
EAL learners go through a similar process, but they have a smaller set of English on which to base
their learning. These learners first need to build a bank of oral English on which to base their
literacy development. This works best where the written language they encounter in the early stages
is familiar to them.
An EAL literacy learner usually has no more difficulty that any other EAL learner in acquiring
basic conversational English. Such English is heavily context embedded (usually about the here and
now) and filled with redundancies (filler words like ‘um’ or ‘like’, hesitancies and repetition) which
gives the listener time to process meaning.
EAL literacy learners have more difficulty acquiring the more formally structured spoken English
which is more closely related to the language they will find in written texts, the language required
for academic reading and writing, for oral presentations, or for comprehending formal teacher talk.
Here the lexical content is dense, there is less redundancy, and the context often relates to other
times and other places.
An EAL literacy learner has the two fold challenge of:

learning new conceptual understandings with limited oral English

acquiring the structures of formal oral and written English on which their literacy
development will be based.
They may be unaware that:

written texts are different from spoken texts and

that there are different kinds of written texts.
The older the learner, the more complex the structures of the texts they will be expected to read and
the greater the dissonance between their own spoken language and the language of written texts.
Developing spoken English
1
Back to contents
The oral language learning continuum
It is helpful to think of oral language as being on a continuum (Gibbons 1991) ranging from
informal conversation to the formal English of a lecture or presentation (See Figure 1 below). The
different characteristics of both kinds of speech are shown in Figure 2 below.
Figure 1:Oral language continuum (overview)
Spontaneous
conversation,
informal dialogue eg
small group or pair
talk
Interactive,
planned talk eg
putting together
a group report
Longer stretches
of planned
spoken text eg a
recount, story
telling, news
telling
Planned
organised formal
speech eg
presentation,
lecture
Figure 2:Characteristics of formal and informal speech
Conversational English
Formal spoken English

spontaneous dialogue

planned monologue

unstructured

sequenced

interactive

cohesive

contains redundancies

many content words

fewer content words

meaning stands alone

meaning is context
embedded

shares features of
written text
Moving students along the oral language continuum
Small group exploratory talk
Initial exploratory talk about a new topic links new learning to students’ existing language and
understandings and provides a base for new concepts and vocabulary.
Exploratory talk typically occurs in small group activities, is shared by group members, usually
taking short turns. It’s face to face, spontaneous and often fragmented because the context makes
the meaning obvious. For the same reason there may be fewer content words (see Transcript 1,
Transcript 1
Jackie:
Craig:
Jackie:
Paula:
Jackie:
Craig:
Jackie:
Paula:
Craig:
Let it go. You gotta … you gotta count.
No, you. I’m doing this.
You’re moving it with your hand. It won’t …
Hang on. If …? What if … um … Let’s get a …
Yeah … we could hang it from the desk.
How?
I dunno. Where’s … What about…
Sticky tape.
No, it … it’d come off. Got a thumbtack? …Here, put it here.
Developing spoken English
2
Back to contents
Text from Derewianka, B. (1992) Assessing Oral Language in Derewianka, B (Ed) Language Assessment in
Primary Classrooms. Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Reporting back talk
When a member of the group reports back to the class on the activity,(see transcript 2) the talk
needs to include the details that the context provided. Items need to be named and the actions
described, including where, how and when they occurred. The speaking and listening demands of
the second context are much greater and may require teacher scaffolding.
Transcript 2
Craig:
Jackie:
Craig:
We got the … made the … pendulum thing … that had a bit of a … oh … a … just a bit of
string and a bit of plasticine and to tie that on and sort of … then we made a …
stuck it to the desk …
to the desk and then we had to put it up higher because it was too long and it would’ve
hit the ground so we put the books under the desk and then we had trouble … um …
because it wouldn’t work properly and we kept making the string longer and we … um …
we got about 58 centimetres … no … 58 seconds … and 60 things … but we never got it
exact … the right amount.
Formal reporting back
For formal presentations students help scaffold students with practice with the more formal
‘features of spoken English with explicit teaching of the kind of language that is appropriate
through teacher modelling and reshaping of student utterances.
Transcript 3
Paula:
We had to make a pendulum that would swing 60 times in a minute. First we got a swing,
some plasticine and a stopwatch … and a ruler. There were two ways we tried to measure
the pendulum – first by changing the length of the string and secondly by changing the
amount of the plasticine … the weight. When the string was 75 centimetres long it took
57 centimetres to get 60 swings. Then we kept repeating the experiment and changing
the length and the weight, but we couldn’t get the velocity exact. We think that the longer
the string is the longer time it takes.
Text from Derewianka, B. (1992) Assessing Oral Language in Derewianka, B (Ed) Language Assessment in
Primary Classrooms Sydney: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Aim to structure learning to help students move along the oral language continuum. They then have
a linguistic base for reading and later writing the formal structures of written English. Approaches
such as the ‘Language Experience’ approach and the ‘Curriculum Cycle’ are particularly
appropriate for taking students along the oral language continuum.
Talk as ‘process’ and talk as ‘performance’
Pauline Jones expands on these ideas by categorising spoken English in the classroom as either ‘talk
as process’ or ‘talk as performance’.
Talk as process refers to learning experiences in which talk is associated with other activities. For
example students may be engaged in hands-on activities … where … students and teachers usually
focus on meaning or on talking their way to understanding.
Talk as performance refers to spoken language activities that take account of an audience. Like written
tasks, these formal spoken tasks (such as information reports and morning news) often have identifiable
Developing spoken English
3
Back to contents
generic structures and the language used is more predictable. The resulting texts … is at the written-like
end of the continuum. With less contextual support, the speaker must include all necessary information
in the text – hence the importance of topic as well as textual knowledge. And while meaning is still
important, there will be more emphasis on form and accuracy
Talking to Learn, p. 14, 1996, edited by Pauline Jones, Primary English Teaching Association, NSW
Low literacy background students, as do all students, need to ‘talk their way into understanding’
through process talk, but need to learn the different conventions of talk as performance where the
notion of audience, purpose, form and accuracy are important. Students from oral language cultures
are likely to be familiar with conventions of performance talk as in storytelling or reporting and this
knowledge can be built on.
Further Information
ESL Teacher Support Material, Stages A2, B2 and B3, pp 55 – 60
Gibbons, P. 1991 Learning to Learn in a Second Language, pp 26 – 42
Gibbons, P. 2002 Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning, pp 14 – 75
Gibbons, P. (2002). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: teaching second language learners in
the mainstream classroom. Newtown: PETA.
Language Australia and the Department of Education, Training and Employment, South Australia,
Early Literacy and the ESL Learner, Participants’ Manual 1998, Module 3
Strategies to develop oral English
Teacher student question styles
The two most common forms of teacher-student interaction are:

Question – Response – Evaluation

Question – Response – Feedback
The second form provides the most assistance to the EAL learner.
Question–Response–Evaluation
In this common form of classroom interaction, students engage in ‘guessing’ what is in the teacher’s
head. The teacher either accepts or rejects the students’ responses. Often if a student’s response is
deemed incorrect, they are not given feedback, or the opportunity to reflect on their responses.
Example
Teacher:
Abdul, why do you think Maria closed the door?
Abdul:
Stop wind?(quietly)
Teacher:
Stop the wind. No. Ivan?
Ivan:
To stop the smoke
Teacher:
To stop the smoke. (Three second pause) Not exactly. It would stop the oxygen
getting to the fire and making it burn more severely wouldn’t it?
Question – Response – Feedback (QRF)
Developing spoken English
4
Back to contents
The QRF model mirrors the process by which children acquire first language. The teacher-asks a
question, followed by the student’s response, followed by the teacher-facilitated negotiation of
meaning, or feedback (Simich, 1984; Tharp and Gallimore, 1991). Paraphrasing and reshaping of
students’ responses affirms the learner and gives them the opportunity to co-construct a response
with their teacher and their peers. EAL students hear the correct form of the response and the
teacher builds on existing knowledge, corrects errors and introduces more complex language in a
natural way.
Tharp, R. G., & Gallimore, R. (1991). The instructional conversation; Teaching and learning in
social activity. Santa Cruz, CA: The National Centre for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second
Language Learning
Example
Teacher:
What happens first?
Abdul
Lay egg
Teacher
Yes, but something else happens before that
Abdul:
Before that, the man butterfly and woman butterfly, together.
Teacher:
Yes that’s right. They mate. The male and female butterfly mate. And what happens
next?
Abdul
Female butterfly lay egg
Teacher
The female butterfly lays eggs. Where?
Abdul
Lays eggs in leaf.
Teacher:
Yes, she lays her eggs on a leaf.
Collaborative discussion: Pair or group work
In collaborative discussion, students work to solve a problem together providing opportunities for
authentic communication. Students experiment with new language and can ask for assistance from
other students or the teacher. The teacher can identify student strengths and gaps and focus teaching
accordingly.
Fist review the purposes of group work, group roles and rules. Focus on the actual language of
interaction, e.g. how to get your turn, how to disagree politely, how to make a suggestion or to offer
a suggestion.
Similarly teach and scaffold the language of reporting.
The fish bowl technique helps to model the group work interactions. This involves demonstrating
with a small group of students out the front. The other students comment on how well the group
worked together, what kind of language was used in the discussion and the reporting back section,
and how they could work more effectively. List the language used for group talk and reporting back
on a chart for display.
Think Pair Share

Think Pair Share is a cooperative learning strategy that allows students to think about a
question/idea/issue before sharing their ideas with a partner and then sharing their joint
response with the group. The focus is on short term purposeful talk. It can be used in any
curriculum area.
Developing spoken English
5
Back to contents

The strategy maximises learners’ opportunities to formulate ideas and to receive feedback.
The ‘think’ and ‘pair’ parts of the strategy combine the benefits of ‘wait time’ for cognitive
processing with the benefits of cooperative learning. The ‘share’ component takes students
closer to the formal spoken language end of the oral language continuum, and helps build
the kind of academic language they need.

It involves all members of the group in discussion rather than just the more confident,
articulate few.

It demonstrates to students the benefits in learning of active listening, exploratory talk and
cooperative learning
The strategy helps students:

activate prior knowledge before reading a text or commencing a new topic

predict outcomes of an experiment, an activity etc

interpret meaning in text

respond to issues
Note: The success of the strategy depends on students being explicitly taught, and practising:

active listening skills; (e.g. eye contact, no interruptions, non verbal encouragement such as
nodding)

ways to express their joint thinking ( e.g. We both agree, We think that)

language to express possibility (e.g. maybe, possibly, it could be)
General strategies to assist oral English development

Allow ‘wait time’ for students to form a response to a question.

Practise pausing and sentence stress for extended utterances.

Practise nonverbal language eg body stance (not fidgeting), eye contact when speaking,

Use oral story telling across the curriculum to draw from students’ previous background
experiences and cultural traditions. Storytelling helps develop ‘written like’ language. After
listening to a story, model how to complete a story map. Teach and practise the necessary
language of narratives e.g. sequence words, active verbs. Students jointly construct a story
map and, using the story map, they then retell the story. They can use the same procedure as
preparation for telling a story from their culture

Build in information gap activities where learners have to exchange information in order to
complete a task. They use a range of oral language functions e.g. describing, clarifying,
locating, explaining.

Do mime and role play

Practise formal debates to help students develop the kind of language they will encounter in
opinionative texts and will need for writing arguments. Formal debates need to be built into
a topic so that students have something to say and know the language needed to express
opinions, develop an argument, give reasons etc.

Use Games to help develop informal language and language of instructions
Developing spoken English
6
Back to contents

Use Songs and jazz chants for pronunciation and rhythm

Practise asking questions. Use question charts to prompt questions. For further information
go to Refugee Bridging Programs support material, section 7.0
Published by: Student Learning Division
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
Carlton 2012
© State of Victoria (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development) 2012
The copyright in this document is owned by the State of Victoria (Department of Education and Early
Childhood Development), or in the case of some materials, by third parties (third party materials). No part
may be reproduced by any process except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968, the
National Education Access Licence for Schools (NEALS) (see below) or with permission.
An educational institution situated in Australia which is not conducted for profit,
or a body responsible for administering such an institution, may copy and
communicate the materials, other than third party materials, for the educational
purposes of the institution.
Developing spoken English
7