Tag Archives: oral language

Accountable Talk

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I have just finished reading through a paper entitled Accountable Talk Sourcebook: for classroom conversation that works (Michaels, O’Connor & Williams Hall, 2013).  Again, I was introduced to accountable talk in the Metropolitan sessions led by Lyn Sharratt in February this year.

accountable talk 2

Anchor chart from https://tackk.com/fzmr3b

Talking with others about ideas and work is fundamental to learning. We need to be able to organise our thoughts coherently, hear how our thinking sounds out loud, listen to how other respond and hear others expand or add to our thinking.

Michaels, O’Connor and Williams Hall write that to promote learning, classroom talk must be accountable – to the learning community, to accurate and appropriate knowledge, and to rigorous thinking.

accountable talk

Shared as a part of Lyn Sharratt’s presentations to Metro schools

Accountable talk takes time and effort to implement. The teacher has to create norms and skills in the classroom by modelling discussion, questioning and probing and leading conversations. Then academically productive talk has to be co-constructed by the teacher and students. It is working towards a thinking curriculum.  Setting up predictable, recurring routines that are well-practiced will assist students from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds as everybody will learn and share what is expected in the process of using accountable talk.

Conversations can be at a number of levels – whole class, small group, partner and peer or teacher conferences. All students have the right to engage in accountable talk and these discussions should occur across all year levels and in all learning areas.

accountable talk for littlies

from Susan Jones (thank God it’s First Grade blog)

Anchor chart

Accountability to the learning community

Students need to listen to one another and pay attention so they can use and build on another person’s ideas. The idea is to be able to paraphrase and expand on ideas, clarify when meaning is lost and to disagree respectfully. Both students and teachers will need patience, restraint and focused effort. In a classroom, there will be students actively talking together, participation in a variety of talk activities, attentive listening, respect, trust and risk-taking, challenges, and criticism and disagreement will be aimed at the idea, not the person.

Accountability to accurate knowledge

When students make a claim or observation, it needs to be as specific and as accurate as possible.  In a classroom, students would make specific reference to previous findings to support arguments and assertions and unsupported claims would be questioned for further information, facts or knowledge.  Students would be concerned with ensuring what they are saying is true and supportable.

Accountability to rigorous thinking

Claims and evidence would be linked together in a logical, coherent and rigorous manner. Evidence is examined critically. Different disciplines vary in the types of evidence. To support how a poem conveys emotions, the speaker may cite multiple pieces of textual evidence to support the interpretation.  In history, the speaker may use historical facts to support a position that began as an opinion. In maths, the speaker will use a mathematically relevant basis to support their intuition. Attention will be paid to the quality of the claims – how well support? Is the evidence good? Is it sufficient? Authorative?  Relevant? Unbiased?

How to set up accountable talk in the classroom

  1. Begin with a focus on academic purposes –  this is critical. As a teacher,  what are the academic goals for the lesson? What are the key concepts students need to learn?  What are the big ideas they need to grapple with? How do the ideas linked to work already done?

    accountable talk poster

    Anchor chart from https://tackk.com/fzmr3b

  2. Ask what kind of instructional talk will support the accomplishment of those purposes – it needs to provided points of entry and opportunities for engagement for all student
  3. Plan – there needs to be a clear introduction of the task, time for student activity and a clear recap of the point, the big ideas that have been discussed and the new understandings that have been arrived at
  4.  Consider the best class format to facilitate these academic goals – whole group, small group or partner work? Should the topic be set up and then stopped at a certain point for a partner discussion?

NB Recurring, familiar events and activities that take place at a certain time, in consistent ways and for consistent purposes will ensure that all students know how to participate in the conversation.

My thoughts

There is a lot of information around accountable talk on the internet. The link below has a video that captures the essence of students using accountable talk. It also has the anchor chart and featured image that I have used for this blog page.

Accountable talk will require lots of modelling and a slow, co-construction of sentence starters and guidelines. It links beautifully with many pedagogies and frameworks already being used in schools, such as Philosophy or yarning circles.

I also love how accountable talk can be used for any year level and in any learning area. Imagine the power of conversation that students can participate in if accountable talk has been fostered from the early years of schooling.

I love the phrase – a thinking curriculum. Accountable talk uses a gradual release model and builds to students doing the thinking and the talking…..about the curriculum with which they are learning.

Poster from Cheryl

Thanks to Cheryl for sharing this with me.

 

Grand Conversations

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Grand Conversation in Primary Classrooms

So much for my 30 posts in 30 days. Unfortunately, work commitments beat me this week and I am now about five posts behind my goal. My oral language workshop still prevails so tonight’s blog will look at Grand Conversations in Primary Classrooms, an article published as a part of the Capacity Building Series. This series was produced by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat to support leadership and instructional effectiveness in Ontario schools and the article I am referring to is 18th in the list.grand conversation

I was introduced to the article when Lyn Sharratt (co-author of Putting Face on the Data) visited Metropolitan schools in February this year. Lyn chose an activity whereby each table group member was assigned a section to skim and scan in the article and then jigsawed to share the information gleaned.

Oral language is the foundation for the complex literacy skills that are critical to a child’s success in today’s knowledge society (Grand Conversations in Primary Classrooms, p.1) . The article begins by exploring the difference between gentle inquisitions (one talk pattern where the teacher is in charge and builds on a series of questions and answers) compared to Grand conversations (authentic, lively talk about text that has the potential to foster higher-level comprehension and student’s attitudes to reading). The talk pattern of a grand conversation is conversational where students and teachers exchange ideas, information and perspectives. The teacher is a member of the group, stepping in only when needed to facilitate and scaffold conversation.

This methodology works beautifully when you consider: who is doing the thinking? who is doing the talking?

The critical first step is the choice of text – it needs to be stimulating and to support a grand conversation. It needs to be sufficiently challenging and multi-layered. For non-fiction, choose a text that presents content clearly and at times provides strong visual support. For a fiction text, choose books with interesting plots and characters, detailed descriptions and dialogue. Poetry and wordless picture books are also great choices. The arrivalThe limited text of wordless picture books requires students to infer, make predictions and to express personal thoughts, feelings and opinions.  The images must be visible to all participants.

Modelling conversational skills

Students need to taught how to consider the ideas presented in the text, how to share and defend their ideas and opinions and how to build on and question ideas of others. Initially, teachers may initiate conversations, ask big questions and model appropriate discussion skills. They will also need to be ready to step in and offer new questions or prompts when redirection is necessary. A teacher’s role will include assisting students to: accept different ideas and opinions;  practise turn-taking and discussion techniques; and encourage the quieter students to have-a-go.

Teachers can model and students can practise these skills both in a whole class and small group situation. Anchor charts can be developed with students to record rules and norms for productive conversations.

Grand conversationThe teachers’ role in a grand conversation shifts form discussion director to discussion facilitator to participant as students gain greater independence and proficiency (again this fits with the gradual release of responsibility).

Examples of Authentic Questions

• What do you think the author wants us to think?

• How would the story be different if another character was telling it?

• How does the author show his point of view? Do you agree?

• What do you think was the most important thing that happened?

• What was something that confused you or that you wondered about?

• How did you feel about what happened in the story? What made you feel that way?

• Are you like any of the characters?

In what ways?

• Did you agree with what (character’s name) did? Why?

• What do you think will happen next?

What do you think (character’s name) will do? What would you do in the same situation?

• Is there someone in the book you’d like to talk to? What would you say? What makes you want to say that?

Preparing Students for Discussion

The paper lists and describes a number of engaging and innovative strategies to support student thinking about the text prior to classroom discussion. These include:

  • Literature logs and journals  – students can record personal ideas, reactions, questions, connections and learning from their reading – provides sudents with the opportunity to reflect on and ‘ink their thinking’ (Donnelly, 2007) prior to discussion.
  • Consensus board – after reading a rich text, each student draws a picture of what they think should be the focus of the discussion. Young students can label and older students can write a sentence or two. The pictures are grouped and labelled so that students can see what is considered most important and worthy of discussion (McGee and Para, 2009).
  • Sketch-to-stretch – students use sketches to respond to a text being read to, with or by them (either at key points or at the end). Rather than a drawing, they use images, words, shapes and other symbols and then share their sketches in small groups as conversation starters (Whitin, 1996).
  • Close reading of a text passage – students are invited to assist in selecting an important part of the story and then read, reread and discuss the passage in a small group to work out author’s stated and implied messages.
  • Traffic lights – a good strategy for independent readers. Students are provided with three colours of post-it notes: green for parts of the text they agree with, think are important or make a connection with; red for parts they disagree with, did not like, make them upset etc; and yellow for parts they found confusing, left them wondering or raised questions.

Structuring Grand Conversations

Grand conversations have many names: literature circles, books clubs, reading response groups and literature discussion groups. Students come together to talk about text they have read or had read to them in order to answer to questions the text as they look at it from different points of view.

My apologies to the authors: the following lists are basically word for word of what is in their article:

Teacher read alouds

  •  Provides a context for rich conversations at all grade levels, especially when students are unable to read challenging and conceptually complex texts.Reading aloud
  •  Most commonly used as a whole-class activity.
  •  Frequently use picture books, both fiction and non-fiction,
  •  Bring students physically close to the text and hold it so that students can observe the pictures
  •  Students are encouraged to listen to the words and simultaneously examine the pictures in order to make sense of the text.
  •  Often the teacher interjects questions to assist students in clarifying understandings and constructing an overall understanding of the message conveyed by the text.
  •  After reading, teachers can use the read-aloud text to kick off a grand conversation.
  •  Students form a circle so that all speakers can see and hear one another.
  •  Teacher and students review collaboratively-established norms for group discussions.
  •  Teacher introduces a big question or prompt to initiate discussion and scaffolds the conversation as necessary.

Shared and guided reading groups

  • Opportunity for students to practise student-led conversation about a text.
  • After using a shared or guided approach to read a common text, the teacher presents a big question or prompt related to the text.
  • Following review of the class anchor chart for grand conversations, the teacher withdraws, providing an opportunity for reading group members to engage in student-led conversation stemming from the question or prompt.
  • Teacher checks in with other students and observes the functioning of the discussion group from a distance.
  • After a few minutes, the teacher returns to the group and joins the conversation in progress.
  • Students are encouraged to share, explain and elaborate their thinking about the question or prompt.
  • Teacher may assist in resolving conflicts that may have arisen as a result of conflicting opinions or procedural issues such as turn-taking and conversation domination.
  • Before ending the session, teacher and students reflect on and assess the functioning of the group in relation to the class guidelines for grand conversations.

Literature circles

  • Small groups of students (about three) can come together around a common theme or big idea using one or more texts.

  • Teacher selects books for these small-group discussions based on student needs and interests.

  • After listening to “book talks” given by the teacher, students may choose the text for their group discussion by holding a vote.

  • Before beginning the discussion teacher may want to introduce students to various conversational roles – such as discussion director, illustrator, word wizard and connector – as a way of scaffolding student-led conversations.

    NB Goal is for students to participate in grand conversation without taking on a specific role.

Instructional conversations

  • Whole-class or small-group discussions about a common text that combine instruction and conversation.
  •  Intended primarily to help students extract information from a text.
  • Teacher begins with a specific curriculum goal in mind – a theme, topic or concept – and facilitates classroom conversation in order to meet that goal.
  • Teacher and students share their prior knowledge and integrate it with new information gathered from the text to extend understanding of the topic or concept.
  •  Teacher facilitates sustained discussion encouraging students to share and clarify understandings, link new knowledge to prior knowledge and consider issues presented in the text from various points of view
  • Teacher brings closure to the conversation by summarizing, drawing conclusions or establishing goals for the next conversation.

Idea circles

  • Heterogeneous small groups that support discussion focused on learning about a concept.

  •  Purpose is to have students build an understanding of a concept through the dialogic exchange of facts and information (Guthrie & McCann, 1996).

  • Goal is to ensure that each student leaves the group with a clearer, more thorough and more accurate understanding of the target concept.

  • Multiple concept-related texts, at varying levels of reading difficulty, are provided by the teacher.

  • Each student reads their selected text, either independently or with a partner, for the purpose of gathering information about the topic under discussion.

  • Students then bring their information to the circle where the information is shared, clarified, extended and debated in order to co-construct a deeper and more elaborate understanding of the concept.

In conclusion

Being able to think deeply, articulate reasoning and listen purposefully increases student engagement. Grand conversations allow students to be leaders in a collaborative process that promotes the discussion of text in a meaningful way. This supports higher-order thinking skills and increases student learning and achievement.  Who is doing the thinking and who is doing the talking in your classroom?

As we move through the gradual release of responsibility, it should move from teacher to student!

 

Oral rehearsal

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I am about to put together a presentation on oral language so my next few blogs will explore the research that supports this area. There are many aspects to oral language and I have already explored  Konza’s work on oral language as part of the Big 6.

This blog will consider the importance of oral rehearsal, something that Lyn Sharratt (author of Putting faces on the data) paid a lot of attention to in her recent work with Metropolitan schools in Brisbane, Queensland.

It is interesting when you google ‘oral rehearsal’ – there isn’t much about it. Yet, oral rehearsal in writing is a necessary prerequisite for thoughtful writing pieces (Sharratt & Fullan, 2012).

Not only is it necessary for writing, but any speaker should be given opportunity to rehearse before sharing their thoughts in a public forum. This includes teachers in staff meetings and professional development and of course, students before they have to share orally in the classroom.

This makes sense – how many of us ‘rehearse’ what we are going to say prior to a formalised presentation. One of the reasons I sometimes avoid contributing in a public forum, is because I haven’t had the opportunity to rehearse what I would like to say. If I feel like this, how do some of my students feel?scared

Calkins (2001) stated that, ‘In schools, talk is sometimes valued and sometimes avoided….and this is surprising – talk is rarely taught…Yet talk, like reading and writing, is a major motor – I could even say the major motor – of intellectual development’ (p.226).

A search in the United Kingdom of the term, Oral Rehearsal, undertaken by the Department for Children, Schools and Families found ten references:

  • Using writing partners and oral rehearsal, 
  • After oral rehearsal, write explanatory texts independently from a flowchart or other diagrammatic plan, using the conventions modelled in shared writing. 
  • Rehearse sentences orally before writing and cumulatively reread while writing
  • The trainer repeatedly models rehearsal of sentences in speech before committing them to paper…
  • The importance of oral rehearsal and cumulative re-reading
  • Oral rehearsal before writing 
  • Rehearse sentences orally before writing and cumulatively reread while writing 
  • A range of drama and speaking and listening activities that support appropriate oral rehearsal prior to the written outcomes. 
  • Oral rehearsal prior to writing…. In pairs, children rehearse phrases and sentences, using some of the ideas suggested. 
  • Scribe the sentence, modelling its oral rehearsal before you write it. 
  • Oral rehearsal: in particular, those children who have poor literacy skills; for children with poor language skills.

All of these refer to rehearsing orally prior to writing. I would go further and promote oral rehearsal before speaking informally and formally.

A study by Myhill and Jones noted that a teacher employing oral rehearsal practice in her classroom observed improvement in the use of imaginative written text and in low-attaining writers. She attributed improvement in her student’s writing to the fact that oral rehearsal allowed the children ‘to think about before writing it down’ and that oral rehearsal made it ‘easier to change it [writing] in talk than when it had been written down.

oral rehearsalGive students the opportunity to talk things out prior to speaking publicly or to written responses!

 

Oral language

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IMG_1147The Big Six

In 2011, Deslea Konza wrote a series of papers entitled Understanding the reading process. She identified six major components for the effective teaching of reading and called them The Big Six.  They included:

  1. Oral language
  2. Phonological awareness
  3. Phonics
  4. Vocabulary
  5. Fluency
  6. Comprehension

Konza (2011) stated that although reading is difficult to reduce to a small number of components,  the big six was one way of synthesising the major findings of an enormous number of empirical studies into the components of an effective reading program.

The following blog is a brief summary of her first component from her original paper and supporting paper on Oral language.

Oral Language

Children talkingOral language is important for both reading and writing. Children who have been immersed in rich and increasingly complex conversations will have the advantage of increased vocabulary development, understanding language structure and the ability to tune in to the sounds of the English language. Competency with oral language is necessary for understanding language at a printed level as oral language will help develop strong vocabulary, strong grammatical skills and an ability to reason and infer.

It is also important for children to have experiences with books and other forms of print. Awareness of how marks on a page represent language develops from a very young age and this comes about from watching people read and write both for pleasure and other purposes and having stories and books read to them.

Oral language abilities are linked to the development of early reading skills and to reading in the middle years of primary school.  Oral language positions the child as an active, literate oral language learner and prepares him or her for the challenge of learning to read (Konza, 2011).

What do we do for students who don’t have the benefit of a language-rich and print-rich environment? These students will be further disadvantaged if this is not recognised and acknowledged by the school. As Konza (2011) states all young children need a stimulating language environment at school, but for children from these less literacy-rich backgrounds, the need is urgent and paramount.

General principles regarding oral language development

  1. Refer children for assessment if speech and language delays are significant – a hearing assessment and a referral to a speech pathologist if speech or language is delayed or different from peers.
  2. Build oral language across all year levels – oral language proficiency assists with relationships, communication, business and personal lives and employment. Teachers can continue to assist students become more articulate and sophisticated users of language.
  3. Allow wait time  – waiting at least 3-5 seconds gives children thinking time (OWL – observe, wait, listen)

Teacher language

  1. Model clear and correct use of oral language.
  2. Monitor student understanding.
  3. Adjust language according to student need.

Teaching strategies

  1. Teach active listening- active listening requires selective and sustained attention, working memory, cognitive processing and information storage and recall mechanisms. Barrier games and story grammar activities help to develop active listening and for older students, teaching note-taking skills from oral input.
  2. Build on student language – elaborate by adding new information, extend through questioning, reinforce through repetition, model self-talk, taking turns, eye contact and appropriate social distance.
  3. Build oral language development into daily routines and classroom activities – do this during roll call, transition time, collection of materials, giving of instructions.
  4. Provide opportunities for social interaction – Oral language develops better through one-on-one conversations with a better language user. Who is doing the talking in your classroom? Students need as many opportunities as possible to engage in discussions and conversations – pairs, small groups, parents, volunteers, aides.
  5. Explore books together – reading narrative texts provides oral language support for both younger and older children. Picture books can stimulate language and promote a rich discussion of ideas.
  6. Model thinking processes through ‘think alouds’ – the more difficult the problem the more likely we are to articulate our thinking processes as we search for a solution – modelling self-talk is very useful for problem solving and for managing emotions.
  7. Consider the language demands of each lesson – need to explicitly teach the new vocabulary and other elements of language.
  8. ‘Correcting’ children’s communication – most effective response is to model the correct way without explicitly pointing out the error.

Konza (2011) concluded that to help develop these critical skills, it is important to:

  •  engage in conversations with children as often as possible.
  •  provide as many opportunities for discussion and conversation with other fluent speakers.
  •  explore books together.

Reading aloud LPB Laos.jpg
By Blue Plover – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26109345