Speaking and Listening at Key Stage 2 and Beyond

Provide students with the following transcript (Sequence 1) of a group of KS2 children talking together (without a teacher).

Sequence 1
The children in this group came from homes in which a variety of languages were spoken, including various Indian languages and American (rather than British) English. Their discussion was set up by their teacher, who provided the children with a set of questions about language use on cards. The sequence begins shortly after one of the children has read out a question from a card: 'Do you change the way you talk depending on where you are?'

(From Talk and Learning 5-16, page C19. Milton Keynes: The Open University, 1991.)

The students could then be asked to discuss the following questions together:

• What do the children show they know and understand about language variation?
• How does their knowledge relate to the content of the English curriculum?
• What kind of opportunities should schools offer for children to make use of their diverse language experience?

This booklet provides information and teaching strategies to support the teaching of speaking and listening in Year 7. The aim is to help pupils to sharpen their skills and develop confidence as speakers and listeners, by providing models, carefully planned activities and tasks that promote different kinds of talk and listening, and through structured reflection. The value of this resource is that it can be used to support student's discussion with one another, with a focus on what is valuable in speaking and listening in the classroom, and where the practical problems lie.

A useful pack of materials called Speaking, Listening, Learning: working with children in Key Stages 1 and 2 was sent by the DfES sent to each school in England and Wales in November 2003. The materials can also be accessed at: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary or ordered from DfES:

Tel: 0845 60 222 60
Fax: 0845 60 333 60
Email: dfes@prolog.uk.com
quoting reference number DfES 0623-2003 G

Students can find out how well used this guidance has been in primary schools, looking for such issues as (a) the support teachers have received from management for their implementation of this initiative (b) barriers which may have caused teachers to give the guidance little consideration. Students can evaluate the nature and purposes of the guidance, and discuss their opinions of the materials provided (such as the pack of teaching objectives for each year group, and the video tapes of children talking).

Students should become aware the way assessing speaking and listening fits principles for good assessment. The QCA's P-scales for speaking and listening are assessment criteria for progress below level one in the national curriculum programmes of study. These programmes are designed for pupils aged 5-16. They were developed to support target setting through the use of summative assessment to be used at the end of key stages and, for those pupils making more rapid progress, possibly once a year.

Students can discuss the criteria used to assess children's competence in speaking and listening (separately) in order to help establish an understanding of what this means in practice. They can identify particular children in their classes and use the P-scales to analyse their skills, using this information to suggest what teaching objectives are suitable in order to help children make progress. It is important to keep a focus on speaking and listening for learning, so that there is a high expectation that children will become able to take part in learning conversations with their peers. In this way children gain independence, able to confer with their classmates in the absence of a teacher. This is not the same as 'facilitating' learning by providing activities and hoping that the child makes meaning from them.

Speaking and Listening objectives are included in the Drama curriculum for Key Stage 3 – see the DfES website: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/…