Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies
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VELS level 3 – Speaking and listening strategies
A range of strategies can be used to develop student speaking and listening skills during reading and writing activities. This section outlines three strategies. Each strategy is described in more detail in the ‘in depth’ section.
Examples of how teachers can help to develop student speaking and listening skills include supporting students to:
- participate in shared reading and writing, guided reading, reciprocal teaching, guided writing and discussion groups
- comment on the differences between the structures and features of spoken and written language
- confirm or challenge the content of a text
- engage in reflective conversation about their own writing and the writing of others
- take notes to assist them in oral presentations
- practise self-talk in attempting reading and writing.
The following strategies may be implemented into phases of a planned learning and teaching sequence:
Getting your knowledge ready:
- students organise themselves as speakers and listeners
- plan actions for listening.
Tuning into ideas:
- use correct tone, voice and intonation to communicate
- use diagrams to organise information heard .
Consolidate and review:
- reflect on speaking and listening strategies for web texts
- improve speaking and listening skills and self confidence
- audience feedback .
See also: VELS level 3 – Further speaking and listening strategies.
Speaking and listening strategies: in depth
This section describes three speaking and listening strategies in more detail, providing classroom activities and practical examples of how to implement these strategies.
The following selected extracts from the English Continuum present illustrative examples of learning and teaching strategies to develop student speaking and listening skills.
Getting your knowledge ready
Students organise themselves as speakers and listeners
Students are supported to get themselves ready for speaking and listening. For example, in a unit of work on minibeasts, students may be shown some soil in a container and asked:
- What do you call this material?
- Imagine living in this dirt all day, every day, wriggling, squirming and chewing your way through it. Dirt all around you, dirt inside you. How would you feel?
Students are shown either some live earthworms on the soil or a picture of some earthworms:
- Some animals spend all their lives in dirt. They eat it, sleep in it and have their families in it. And they love it. One of these animals is the earthworm.
- What is it like living the life of an earthworm?
- We will look at how earthworms live, how they breathe, how they eat, how they move through the earth and how they meet other earthworms.
- You will need to listen to descriptions about earthworms.
Students say what they will do while listening to factual information by responding to the following questions:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
|
What will you be doing? |
I will sit quietly, listen to and think about what is said. |
|
What might you think as you listen? |
I might:
|
Plan actions for listening
- make a picture of what I hear
- listen carefully for the names of things earthworms do
- say new words to myself, try and guess what they might mean
- look at pictures when I hear the new word, try to see where it fits
- wait my turn to talk, wait for other people to stop talking
- listen to what other people say and say what I think about these things
- think of what I will say before I say it. Say it in my mind first.
Tuning into ideas
Use correct tone, voice and intonation to communicate
Teachers read one or two paragraphs with poor expression and mumble some of the words or say them very softly. Pause at inappropriate times. Ask students:
- Was this interesting/good to listen to? Why? Why not?
- How could I have read the text better?
Students note suggestions:
- say it so we can hear it
- say it so it is exciting
- say some parts fast and some slow
- stop at the right places.
Read these paragraphs again with correct intonation, volume, pace and voice and repeat some of the key ideas for greater emphasis. Ask students to decide if they enjoy the listening better.
Reference: Speaking and Listening – Purposes of Communication: scaffolding learning from 2.25
Use diagrams to organise information heard
In a unit of work on minibeasts, students may listen to a text describing the body parts of a worm being read.
- See All About Earthworms – Yuckiest Site on the Internet (http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/worm/pg000102.html)
They practise visualising as they hear sections and then describe the picture they have made. Students record information on to a parallel diagram. Students:
- say the word
- say what it does to the leaf
- say how it matches a part of their body.
These points can be shown in the parallel diagrams:
| Picture of worm | Description of leaf | Picture of child? |
|---|---|---|
|
mouth |
The leaf is grabbed and pulled into its mouth. The spit or saliva makes the leaf soft and wet and the leaf starts to break up into smaller pieces. |
mouth, teeth |
|
pharynx |
The pharynx or throat pushes out of the mouth to grab leaves and pull them back into the mouth. |
throat |
|
oesophagus |
Bits of the leaf are pushed further into the body. |
oesophagus |
|
crop |
Bits of the leaf are stored here for a short time. |
stomach |
|
gizzard |
The leaf is broken up into smaller and smaller pieces. The gizzard grinds up the leaf. It is like sandpaper. |
stomach |
|
intestine |
The tiny bits of the leaf are made even smaller by other liquids called digestive juices. |
intestine |
|
bloodstream |
Gradually these tiny pieces are picked up by the worm’s blood. They are carried around the worm’s body and feed all parts of it. |
bloodstream |
|
anus |
The leftover rubbish comes out the anus as castings or worm poo. |
anus |
Students look at the diagram in the right hand column of the web page and describe each part of the earthworm in sentences. They talk about what each part does to a leaf that is being eaten. They also talk about the size of each part and what each part looks like. They discuss how talking about each part helps them understand it and remember it.
Ask relevant literal level questions:
- What is the main idea here? Does this diagram explain well?
- Where is the leaf first broken up? How does this happen?
- What do you have to grind the food? What does the earthworm have?
- How are the tiny parts of food carried all over the body?
- What is another name for worm poo?
Reference: Speaking and Listening: Ideas Communicated: scaffolding learning from 2.50
Consolidate and review
Reflect on speaking and listening strategies for web texts
Students identify the new language knowledge they have learned. They ask themselves:
- What new ways of saying things have I learned?
- What new words were in the web pages?
- What do I remember about the good things to do when learning from web pages?
Improve speaking and listening skills and self confidence
Students reflect on their speaking and listening and note points. They:
- talk about what they will do when they are listening and speaking and which listening and speaking strategies they will use
- say what they will do before and after they begin to listen to a factual text and reflect by comparing strategies
- say how they will organise the information to explain or describe how different animals eat.
Audience feedback
Students use audience feedback to reflect on, evaluate and modify their spoken texts to clarify meaning and their presentation skills. Students note their reflections and use them to plan what aspects of oral presentations they will target next in their speaking.
Reference
English Developmental Continuum P–10, English Continuum (Victorian Department of Education 2006).
English Continuum
This Department of Education web page provides a detailed explanation of the English Continuum.