English Developmental Continuum P–10 – Speaking & Listening
English Continuum Home | Reading | Speaking & Listening | Writing
Ideas communicated: scaffolding learning from 3.25
Indicators of Progress
- Students show their knowledge of spoken narrative genres, for example, they compose a spoken recount or narrative by using what they know about how to arrange simple and compound sentences in order, for maximum effect and they use what they know about the features of narrative speech to prepare a sequel to a story they heard.
- Students prepare, produce and present performances such as plays or radio broadcasts. For example, to present a spoken argument they sequence their points logically, provide supporting evidence for them and use appropriate persuasive language.
- Students display an awareness of purpose and audience in their preparation and choice of wording.
- Students communicate their interpretations of texts they hear to others through presentations.
- Students use their knowledge of rhyme and rhythm to compose and deliver a verse such as simple poetry for a given topic.
- Students ask relevant questions.
- Students identify most main ideas and some supporting details and communicate these to others through presentations.
- Students analyse the use of various language techniques for particular purposes and goals, for example, they analyse the use of persuasive language techniques such as emphasis, intonation, gesture and rhetoric to communicate a point of view, and the use of fact and opinion.
Teaching Strategies
Before speaking and listening: Getting your knowledge ready
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the story Danny the Champion of the World.
Learn new vocabulary and provide synonyms
Students review the new vocabulary and expressions they have heard in the chapters they have been introduced to and suggest synonyms for them. For example students:
- suggest why caravan was called a gypsy caravan or suggest why the garage is called a filling station
- identify some of the words Danny uses to describe his father? What does eye smiler mean? Why was it important to Danny that his father was an eye smiler?
Collate what the students know
Students review the narrative and answer the following questions:
- What has the story been about so far?
- What did the first, second and third chapters tell us?
- What was the main question answered by each chapter?
|
Chapters |
What does it tell me? |
What questions does it answer? |
|
The filling station |
About Danny, his history, his family and where he lives. |
Who are the main people? Where do they live? |
|
The Big Friendly Giant |
About his father. |
What is his father like? |
|
Cars and Kites and Fire-balloons |
More about Danny and his father, how they live, what they do together. |
What are some of things Danny and his father do? |
Students collate what they know about Danny and his father by answering the following question - What do we know about Danny and his father? They review their mental images of the story so far, talk about them and identify the questions the details answer. For example:
|
Detail |
Question |
|
Danny’s mother died when he was a baby and his father brought him up. |
Who is in Danny’s family? |
|
He and his father live in a gypsy caravan in the country and his father has a service station. |
Where do they live? |
|
His father was very kind. He was Danny’s best friend and did many exciting things with him. |
What is Danny’s father like? |
|
Danny loved helping his father in the service station. |
What does Danny like to do? |
Describe narratives
Students incorporate what they know so far with the way in which a narrative presents information. They recall that a narrative begins by introducing its setting, the main characters and the background. Features of a good story:
- introduce you to the main characters
- tell you where the characters live and what they do
- allow you to gradually get to know them.
Students answer the question - How has the story we have been listening to done this so far? They evaluate what they know about Danny the Champion of the World.
Students talk about the other parts of a narrative. They describe how:
- a set of events unfold and an issue or a problem that gradually develops
- the main characters deal with the issue or the problem
- the problem is solved
- the story finishes.
Students talk about how Danny the Champion of the World achieves this by answering the following questions:
- What might you expect to develop in the next section of the story?
- What might the issue or problem ‘look like’ or ‘sound like’?
- How will you know that a problem is developing?
Based on earlier experiences, the students may suggest that:
- something Danny doesn’t understand, might happen
- something unexpected might happen to Danny
- there might be a problem
- there might be trouble for Danny.
During speaking and listening: Tuning in to ideas
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the story Danny the Champion of the World.
Listen and respond to new ideas
Students listen to Chapters 4 to 6 and respond to questions for each chapter. Students introduce each chapter by saying its title and guessing what it might reveal. For example:
- For the chapter My Father’s Deep Dark Secret, the students may suggest that it will tell them something Danny didn’t know about his father
- For the chapter Mr Hazell, the students may suggest that it will tell them something about Mr Hazell and his connection to Danny and his father.
Students hear each chapter read. They practise visualising the story as they listen and then describe the picture they have made. They add to the sequence of events by answering literal questions that cue them to:
- focus on the new ideas mentioned in the text
- visualise the new ideas and identify questions answered
- link the new ideas with those that they knew already.
To review the text, students answer relevant literal questions.
For example, in Chapter 4:
- What does the paragraph beginning with you will learn … mean?
- What does Danny mean by quirkier quirks and deeper secret?
- What does the silence was deathly mean?
- What picture does it help you make?
- Why did the author talk about the quiet night like this?
- How do you think Danny felt when he couldn’t find his father?
- How do you think Danny felt when he heard the footsteps? Put yourself in Danny’s position and describe how you would have felt.
- What was the effect of saying tap … tap ... tap ... tap?
- What is meant by a powerful yearning?
- What is poaching?
New vocabulary
New vocabulary or phrases are written on cards and mixed with cards of known words. Students are given two or three cards and they:
- use the two or three words in a sentence, for example:
- say a sentence with synonyms for the words on the cards. Other students then have to guess the word on the card, for example:
- play card matching games, for example, Snap, Bingo or Memory in which words are matched with synonyms
- talk about the word on each card for one or two minutes without repeating words
- ask others to guess the words by asking yes and no questions or by playing Twenty Questions.
Students organise the subject matter and make inferences
Students summarise each chapter and talk about the intended purpose. They
- think back over what they remember about each chapter and the pictures they have formed and try to select the main idea in the chapter
- try to think of a single headline for each chapter that tells them what it is about.