Ideas and suggested activities

The following pages consist of some examples of work we do with our student teachers at the University of Bedfordshire. We have included links to the website: Standards and the National Curriculum.

5. Speaking and Listening Activities

a. Exploring the student teachers’ language profile and diversity.

The aims of this session are to make student teachers aware of:

• the range of language they use and have used
• the concept of appropriate language
• the use of dialect and accent
• the use of idiolect.

Activity i

Using a web diagram, the tutor tells the student teachers her own language story from childhood to adulthood.

We then display a range of questions such as:

• How did you talk? What expressions did you use when you were little?
• How do you talk in the classroom? Over a cup of coffee with friends?
• How do you talk to a baby? To your parents? To your tutor?
• Do you speak any other languages? When do you use them and to whom?
• Do you have different words for certain types of food?

This kind of activity is fun and requires student teachers to reflect on their own experience of language and makes them aware of the range of language in one group of student teachers. It also helps them to become aware of how language and identity are connected.

Activity ii

Student teachers are shown transcripts of children’s talk and asked to reflect on their own home language. Where possible, they are asked to observe and record children’s interactive talk, both inside and outside the classroom, and to analyse this. This will help them to consider what children can do with language and what they actually bring into the classroom from their homes and communities.

Connections to Standards
Q 4, 5, 6, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25a.