English Developmental Continuum P–10 – Speaking & Listening
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Communicating orally (Ability to learn oral language): scaffolding learning from 3.50
Indicators of Progress
- Students organise the subject matter and adopt an appropriate verbal style, including word choice, to suit the text and the needs of a specified audience. For example, they sequence the ideas in an appropriate order to persuade peers to their point of view.
- Students adjust speech appropriately in response to verbal and non-verbal feedback from the audience.
- Students identify the language features of oral presentations, including the selection of particular words and terms, the types of sentences they use, the ways in which they use voice and the ways in which they use a range of visual cues and actions.
- Students adjust a verbal presentation to match particular audience characteristics.
- Students use various listening strategies such as sentence-level strategies for example, predicting, clarifying, analysing and paraphrasing and text-level strategies such as, sequencing the ideas to present a description or a point of view.
- Students use various recording procedures while listening, for example, making notes for a sustained period and discussing how note-taking needs to take account of particular aspects of the context and purpose of the presentation.
Teaching Strategies
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.
Use persuasive techniques
Students practise persuading listeners to adopt a particular point of view. They practise using techniques that are similar to those used by Danny’s father. For example, Danny’s father’s view:
- deals with particular problems, solves problems that some people have
- is a fair option which can make things fairer or equal
- is a clever and thoughtful perspective
- is a valuable and quite a specific perspective.
Identify how the information has been prioritised for a specific audience
Students note that the story has been written for children by the way Danny’s father attempts to convince Danny about poaching. Students identify the techniques the writer uses to make the story suitable for children. Students identify the following ideas:
- The story is told through the eyes of a child
- It is written as a conversation between Danny and his father
- Danny asks questions and what his father says answers these questions
- The discussion takes place during an activity that they would enjoy; for example a midnight feast before going to sleep.
Students evaluate if this is a good way of telling a story to children. For example, students consider:
- how they could tell the story through the eyes of a child
- telling it as a conversation in which the child could be asking questions that others in the story answer
- having the story take place during an experience that they understand and enjoy.
Tell a story from a different perspective
Students tell stories to others from different perspectives, for example, through the eyes of a child or Mr Hazell. They decide:
- the questions they might answer
- the key vocabulary and sentences they will use
- how they will tell their story and how they will use their voice to make their story more interesting and more realistic.
After speaking and listening: Consolidate and review
The learning and teaching approach for speaking and listening is illustrated for students responding to the story Danny the Champion of the World.
Improve speaking and listening skills
Students identify their strengths in speaking and listening, record these and use them in future planning. They:
- practise recalling and using the key terms and synonyms
- label and categorise pictures
- practise using new sentence forms
- describe the same events in two or more ways using alternative sentences
- talk about what they would listen for if they were listening to a similar narrative
- describe what they will do before they begin to listen to a narrative
- say what they did having listened to oral presentations including how they would organise the information to tell an imaginative text.