More Than Scaffolds…Providing the Right Space For Oracy Instruction
By Sarah Said
Sarah Said observed that due to an increase in interaction with technology, high school students have become less inclined to speak with each other than they were in the past. Now they need to be motivated to try to talk.
She lists four strategies for encouraging conversation.
Cultivating a Classroom Environment That Supports Oracy – Said creates an environment in her classroom that feels less institutional with round tables and tablecloths, markers, and cards with speaking stems. The walls have charts with vocabulary and more. She also takes the first two weeks of the year to help students become acquainted and develop “social contracts”. (See below)
Designing Learning Opportunities For Oracy – Along with direct instruction, modeling, and written and other forms of demonstrating learning, lesson planning should include structured discussions that involve explaining, arguing, summarizing, and paraphrasing.
Mindful Scaffolding of Oral Language – Said has found that by starting “off with more complicated ways of speaking in smaller groups without scaffolds where students follow models you provide them for speaking”, recording these discussions, and later adding sentence stems gives students more confidence.
Project Based Learning and Oracy – The author involves her students in group “Passion Projects” focused on real issues for which they create solutions that they can then present to their class and other teachers. In this process, the students receive and respond to feedback.
See the article for specific guidelines and links to more ideas.
“Group work can be challenging for students, but teachers can facilitate relationship building that leads to positive learning outcomes.”
