| Section 1.2 - Children need direct guidance and structured practice in speaking and listening.
We have found the following resources useful for working with student teachers on this topic:
| (a) |
'Speaking and Listening: an overview'. Chapter 1 in Grugeon, E., Hubbard, L., Smith, C., and Dawes, L. (2005) Teaching Speaking and Listening in the Primary School. London: Fulton Press. |
This chapter provides a comprehensive review of work done to raise awareness of the importance of speaking and listening for learning. It encourages students to review transcripts of children's talk in order to ensure that they do not fall into the trap of thinking that children bring very little to learning conversations. It also suggests that students examine their own contributions to classroom talk in order to check that they are doing their utmost to develop discussion rather than close it down by asking 'teacher's questions' ( to which they already knows the answer).
| (b) |
For Key Stage 2 teachers, see the Introduction and Lessons 1 – 5 in Dawes, L. Wegerif, R and Mercer, N. (2004) Thinking Together: Activities for Key Stage 2 children and teachers. Birmingham: Imaginative Minds. |
This text introduces and explains the idea of Exploratory Talk as an especially important sort of talk; Exploratory Talk is essentially reasoned, collaborative discussion. Research has shown that encouraging the use of this kind of talk develops children's communication and thinking skills. The Thinking Together lesson plans can be used with children in order to ensure that they can readily engage one another in Exploratory Talk when working in pairs and groups. An interesting classroom-based project is to ask students to look for changes in children's talk before and after they have taken part in Thinking Together lessons.
Similar resources for Key Stage 1 teachers can be found in:
Dawes, L. & Sams, C. (2004) Talk Box: speaking and listening activities for learning at Key Stage 1. London: David Fulton Publishers.
And for Key Stage 3 teachers:
Dawes. L., English, J., Holmwood, R., Giles, J. and Mercer, N. Thinking Together in Geography. Stevenage: Badger Publishing.
| (c) |
The video Talk to Think, produced by Worcestershire County Council, has been designed to help both primary and secondary teachers develop children's collaborative talk skills. The video includes examples of strategies teachers can use to develop children's language skills, and also has illustrative examples of collaborative talk from both primary and secondary phases. It shows how the increased use of effective collaborative talk impacts on the quality of children's thinking and learning. |
The Talk to Think video is available from:
Elizabeth Johnstone, School Improvement and Achievement Division, Worcestershire CC, Pitmaston House, Malvern Road, Worcestershire, WR2 4ZG.
Additional training materials to support the use of the video can be downloaded from: www.thinking.networcs.net
| (d) |
or Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers: go to the ThinkingTogether website Download the software 'Kate's Choice'. This software provides an excellent resource for a group activity involving encouraging Exploratory Talk. The software is specially designed to include features that help children to talk to one another productively, such as: |
- Talk prompts on screen
- Multiple choices on screen, with little typing
- An engaging narrative
- No 'beat the clock' or timer feature.
 
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