Why is oral language important?
- To organise and plan
- To build knowledge
- To develop understanding
- To build relationships
Spoken language is contextual.
It is unpredictable and spontaneous.
It connects our inner and outer world.
It is purposeful.
1/3 children in NZ start school without the oral language they need to thrive. At the moment many new entrants are coming to school with the language abilities of 3 year olds.
Children usually say their first word between 12 and 16 months.
50 words by 18 months.
200-300 words by 24 months
500-1100 words by age 3
What gets in the way of oral language?
Stress in families
Busy working parents
Screens *Glow Kids - book about screen addicted kids.
Violence
Forward facing pushchairs
Age segregated daycares
Dummies
Poverty
For ESOL kids - strongest language not being used.
Children with poor oral language struggle to express their needs. This can lead to behavioural issues.
John Hattie says the most important thing parents can do to make their kids super learners is to talk to them!
Oral language ideas
Talker and listener cards - for talking buddies! Switch halfway through.
Children take turns at taking the roll.
Dictation/picture dictation - could do with number formation too. More capable students could make up the instructions and give them.
"Draw a circle in the middle of your page. Inside the circle write the number that comes after 7." Etc.
Chinese whispers
Listening grids - about grammatically-correct sentences.
Running dictation - information placed around the room - one child is the runner, the other is the writer. Could manipulate the sentences to reinforce maths language, or high-frequency words.
Talking frames
Word play bingo game - e.g. for our inquiry topic of change we could use the words "local, landscape, development, demolish, construction."
Word wheel - topic words are around the wheel - children practise using the words in a sentence.
Skills flow - children attribute a sentence to a picture on handout. Then they tell the sentence to a buddy. Then they can write about it.
Talking pictures - brainstorm words (not too many) then children use in sentence with buddy. Then T gives some new, more sophisticated words in a different colour. Children try to make a sentence using the old and new words. Give the children brainstorm words - don't just get words from the kids. Put brainstorm words in planning. Make sure that the picture is one that young children can relate to and that they lend themselves to good vocab.
3 functions of language in the classroom
Daily interaction
Curriculum language - highly specific, low-frequency
The language of performance - often practiced - poem and nursery rhyme each week.
Rich oral language tasks across curriculum areas.
Conversational rather than interrogative.
We should be introducing 7 new words each day. Give multiple opportunities for children to use new vocab before expecting them to have 'learnt' them.
We spend the bulk of our communication time listening.
We listen for the gist
Listen for specific information
Listen in detail
Listen for inferential information.
Ask - What do good listeners do?
Speaking
Talking frames
Eg. passing round a weta
I noticed....
"I noticed the weta had spikes on its legs."
I saw....
When I was observing the...
Language experience - use for introducing new vocab.
Anticipatory guide - good for non-fiction text
Give say 4 statements. Get kids to identify whether they're true or false.
We need to explicitly teach spelling vocabulary
Syllables
Vowel sounds and blends
Prefixes and suffixes etc.
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