Learning through Talk
Kay Hancock
Melanie Winthrop
LEARNING MEDIA
Workshop aims
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Raise awareness and familiarity with
the content of Learning through Talk
Demonstrate coherence between
key professional resources
Consider the implications for
supporting students’ learning across
the curriculum through teaching and
use of oral language
Language for learning
What is the role of oral language in this lesson?
In particular, look for:
• What the teacher does
• What the students do
We use oral language to:
• convey information
• organise and plan
• build knowledge
• develop understandings
• express ideas …
AND …
• define our membership of social groups
• build relationships and manage social interactions
• express our identity
Vision
What we want
for our young people
Confident
Positive in their own identity
Connected
Able to relate well to others
Effective users of
communication tools
Actively involved
Participants in a range of life
contexts
Lifelong learners
Active seekers, users, and
creators of knowledge
Key competencies
Thinking
“Students … actively seek, use, and create knowledge.”
Using language, symbols, and text
“making meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed.”
Managing self
“students seeing themselves as capable learners … They know
when to lead, when to follow, and when to act independently”
Relating to others
“… interacting effectively with a diverse range of people in a
variety of contexts … the ability to listen actively, recognise
different points of view, negotiate, and share ideas”
Participating and contributing
“ … includes a capacity to contribute appropriately as a group
member, to make connections with others, and to create
opportunities for others in the group”
Reading and speaking
NEMP 2004
Vocabulary knowledge is essential to comprehension. Students would benefit from
opportunities to develop and expand vocabulary in meaningful contexts.
Students’ abilities to elicit deeper information through explorative questioning requires them
to attend carefully to available information … the development of speaking skills needs
to be integrated with skills of listening, observation, and thoughtful interpretation.
Students need opportunities across a variety of contexts to develop the skills and confidence
needed for voicing and justifying an opinion. They need to learn how to question and
consider the opinions of others in appropriate ways.
What the teacher does
“It’s what teachers actually do, moment by moment
in their classrooms, that makes a difference to student
achievement.”
How students learn
What teachers do
What this looks like for the
OL aspects of learning tasks
• imitate
• model
• are aware of students’ needs and the
impact of their own use of OL
• demonstrate
• deliberately model specific aspects of
OL
• understand and help set
learning goals
• help students to understand what they need to
learn
• make the OL aspects of tasks explicit
• construct shared goals
• make connections
• help students to see relationships between what
they know and what they are learning
• help students to develop awareness of when to
activate their prior knowledge
• monitor students to ensure they make
connections
• support students to draw on
appropriate OL strategies and
processes
• raise students’ awareness of what
they’re doing
• use prompts and questions
Instructional Strategies
Deliberate, goal-directed instruction by the teacher includes:
• Modelling
• Prompting
• Questioning
• Giving Feedback
• Telling
• Explaining
• Directing
Chapter 4 (Learning Through Talk: MOE 2009)
Discussions
Teachers’ support students’ learning before and during discussions by:
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Teaching Protocols
Allowing think time
Scaffolding instruction
Encouraging purposeful talk and learning
Monitoring on task learning and talking
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Provide feedback
Learning through Talk, (Years 4-8) MOE 2009, Page 67
Learning through Talk (Years 1-3) MOE 2009 Page Page 67
Discussions
Explicit teaching helps students to:
• Tune in
• Take turns
• Listen with intent
• Remain on the topic
• Value each other’s contribution
• Negotiate meaning with each
other
Learning through Talk, Years 1-3, 4-8. MOE 2009 Page 67
Building conversations
Language used
What are you doing as a
listener, thinker, and speaker?
Why learners do this
Oh, yeah …
Agreeing
To support an idea
That’s what I thought, and …
To give more evidence
Me too, because …
To make the idea bigger and stronger
That’s just like …
I agree with you because …
No, no …
Wait, but …
I don’t think …
But …
I disagree with you because …
Disagreeing
To offer a different opinion
To clarify something the speaker
misunderstood or did not hear
Giving Feedback
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Recapping - summarising, retracing,
catch up
Revoicing - interpreting and
rephrasing
Marking - responding to specific
ideas
Turning back - holding speakers
accountable
Learning through Talk, (Years 4-8) MOE 2009 Page 55
Learning through Talk (Years 1-3) MOE 2009 Page 57
Page 55, Learning through Talk, MOE 2009
Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning:
Developing mathematical discourse: a case study
Read the case study and discuss and
respond to the following questions:
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What are the deliberate actions that
the teacher uses to explicitly teach
the discourse of mathematical
argument?
What was the impact of the
teaching?
Learning through Talk (Years 4-8) MOE 2009 Page 70
Scaffolding language, scaffolding learning
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View the following clips.
Identify how the teacher supports the students to clarify and build
meaning through talk.
Discuss in pairs or groups
The role of oral language in the standards
By the end of Year 6, students will draw on the knowledge, skills,
and attitudes describe in the Literacy Learning Progressions to read,
respond to, and think critically about a variety of texts in order to
meet the reading demands across the curriculum at Level 3. They
will answer questions and express opinions, and locate, compare
and evaluate ideas and information across a small range of texts.
(Draft Reading and Writing Standards: MOE, 2009)
The role of oral language in the standard
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Read the illustration for the
reading standard at the end of
Year 6.
Identify the underpinning role of
oral language in the reading
behaviours.
Discuss the teacher’s role in
scaffolding the students’ oral
language.
Big ideas
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Oral language is more than just a strand of the English curriculum. It’s
more than speaking and listening. Oral language involves ways of being
and thinking.
Oral language is integral to all classroom interactions and to all learning.
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Teachers have a crucial role to play in supporting students’ learning and
academic success.
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In order to become more proficient in oral language, students need many
opportunities to talk.
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Many aspects of oral language benefit from explicit instruction.