Unlocking Speaking and Listening

Developing Spoken Language in the Primary Classroom

Deborah Jones, Pamela Hodson, Deborah Jones, Pamela Hodson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138292710
• eBook ISBN: 9781351868754
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Spoken Language is a key component of the primary national curriculum and is fundamental to children's language development and learning. The need for teachers to develop talk in its own right and also use talk as a means of learning is central to effective primary practice. In the past, Initial Teacher Education and CPD have focused on literacy (reading and writing) to the detriment of speaking and listening. However, research strongly supports talk as fundamental to learning and teaching. It has also been identified as an area where teachers feel less confident. This fully updated third edition of Unlocking Speaking and Listening tackles key issues surrounding spoken language with rigour, depth and a strong focus on research, providing education professionals with clear, practical strategies for engaging in purposeful talk, while also celebrating children's implicit understanding and love of the spoken word.

Drawing on recent classroom research, Unlocking Speaking and Listening considers what children and teachers need to know in order to develop as effective speakers and listeners. The book addresses:

• Planning and assessing talk
• Drama and storytelling
• Working with EAL children
• Developing talk in Science and Mathematics
• Special educational needs
• Using technology to enhance children's communication

Two new chapters on the importance of talk to underpin children's reading development are also included.

With contributions from experts in the field, this vital and fully updated resource will help both trainee and practising primary teachers understand and promote the importance of speaking and listening as an effective tool for learning across the primary curriculum.

CHAPTER

1

Speaking and listening

Context and challenge

Pamela Hodson

Talking in school is very important – you need to be able to ask questions, get along with your friends and talk about your feelings. We also talk when we’re doing investigations in science, such as discussing which melts the fastest – ice or chocolate. And the best thing is – we get to eat the chocolate!

(Gemma, aged 9)

Children can readily identify some of the different kinds of talk that occur in the classroom, whether for social purposes and the establishment of relationships or for learning and communication. In Gemma’s school, the development of children’s spoken language is considered key to underpinning their learning in all areas of the curriculum and is valued by teachers and children alike. This reflects the emphasis embedded in the first English National Curriculum (DES 1990), where the inclusion of speaking and listening as a separate profile component demonstrated a conviction that children’s oracy skills were central to their overall language development. It is evident that children are empowered by having a voice in the classroom and that the importance of talk as a means of learning in all subjects is widely acknowledged. However, while the central role of literacy in children’s development is clearly embodied in UK government policy, over the last 40 years or so, the place of oracy and its significance in classrooms has held a less secure place and has struggled “to gain equivalent esteem with reading and writing as an essential means of learning” (Richmond 2015:3).

This chapter will aim to explore the current educational context for developing children’s spoken language and will discuss research and initiatives which have placed a strong emphasis on the role that talk plays in learning. What emerges from the discussion is the central role of the teacher in both presenting a model for spoken language and in planning for effective opportunities for children to develop their talk and to learn through talk. It will adopt a view that talk is essentially a social act that occurs in a range of contexts which require children to make choices about the language that they use according to the purpose of their talk and whom they are talking to (Halliday 1978). There will be a consideration of the debates which have underpinned the teaching of speaking and listening, such as the place of standard English, and how these have impacted on classroom practice. The teaching of speaking and listening has always been a richly controversial and much-debated field as it brings to the fore complex and challenging issues, not least in reappraising how children learn in the classroom.

Terminology

This title of this third edition of the book uses the phrase speaking and listening, the terminology used in the first National Curriculum (DES 1990) and subsequent iterations to capture the knowledge and skills that children need to develop in this crucial area. However, it has to be acknowledged that “speaking and listening” has been criticised as failing to acknowledge the interrelatedness of the two elements and so promotes a false dichotomy between the two functions (Jones 2017). The term oracy was coined by Andrew Wilkinson (1965) to unite the skills of speaking and listening and as a parallel to the more widely used and accepted term literacy. This was set against a background where it was perceived that the development of children’s talk was being sidelined by a focus on reading and writing, a theme which has resonated throughout policy and practice in primary schools over the last few decades. While it is difficult to give a concise definition of oracy, it includes the development of the ability to both use and understand spoken language effectively; Wilkinson viewed it as fundamental to learning and underpinning the attitudes of the schools towards their pupils. The most recent English National Curriculum (DfE 2013) has replaced speaking and listening with spoken language, and although it “fits the bill reasonably well, [it] does not have connotation of acquired skill that, by analogy with literacy, oracy possesses” (Alexander 2012:2). The requirements for teaching spoken language have been reduced to 12 statements for children from ages 5 to 11 and, in so doing, appear to have sidelined the teaching of oracy. In this context, for both practising teachers and teachers new to the profession, it is evident that they need to have a strongly argued rationale, underpinned by relevant research, for teaching and using talk effectively in the classroom.

Rationale for talk: the research

In the 1960s and 1970s, research carried out by Wilkinson, Britton and Rosen explored the importance of children’s talk to ordering their experience and to learning. Rosen’s particular area of interest lay in children’s use of dialect and the importance of allowing them to use the language of home in the school context as a means of learning. Wilkinson’s research centred on how children learned through talk in classroom contexts and the benefits of small-group collaboration (Wilkinson et al. 1965). Britton’s particular focus was on language development and thought, utilising Vygotsky’s theories to underpin findings about the links between language and thought and the social construction of knowledge (Jones 2017). The work of Douglas Barnes (1976) focused on classroom talk and how children learned through talk; it questioned the value of the established patterns of teacher/pupil interactions, which were largely dominated by the teacher, and argued that children’s talk, and, subsequently, their learning, was restricted in these contexts. A fundamental belief of these key scholars was that “children learned through talk; it was not simply a language mode used to communicate understanding” (Gibbons 2015:159).

Much of the recent research into speaking and listening (Alexander 2004 and Mercer 2000) has continued to explore the role that talk plays in children’s learning and is based on Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the zone of proximal development – the notion that the gap that exists between children’s knowledge and their ability to solve problems independently can be reached with the support of a more capable peer. The work of Mercer and colleagues at Cambridge University in the “Thinking Together”¹ Project encourages teachers to use a dialogue-based approach to thinking and learning and explores the use of talk in a variety of subject areas including maths and science. In essence, the research identifies that we are collective thinkers, in that we learn to think by being involved in conversation and dialogue (Mercer 2014) and that talk is central to children’s thinking and learning. However, government policy has not always consistently supported this view:

The optimistic rise and sad decline of a succession of talk-focused official initiatives bears witness to the extent to which talk still doesn’t have the place in this country’s educational culture that it deserves and requires, and the challenges facing those interested in genuine and lasting reform.

(Alexander 2012:7)

Policy and initiatives

Initiatives for the development of speaking and listening in primary schools are not new (Jones 2017). In 1921, the Newbolt Report highlighted the importance of talk as the foundation to the teaching of English and identified the dangers of imposing standard English at the expense of children’s own dialects (Gibbons 2015). Perhaps one of the most influential and controversial reports on teaching and learning in the twentieth century was the Plowden Report (DES 1967). The stance it adopted on an education based on experience was disputed by those who wanted a more formal or transmissive form of teaching. It identified the central role of spoken language in children’s learning and disputed teaching approaches relying on instruction and questions, which limited, rather than extended, children’s learning. The Bullock Report of 1975 again highlighted the importance of talk in children’s learning and the need to value and respect children’s home language and culture. Both reports argued that much contemporary practice in the classroom denied pupils the opportunity to develop as genuine enquirers and concluded that one of the ways to achieve that is through “properly managed pupil talk” (Richmond 2015:13). At the heart of these reports was the recognition that in order for children to learn effectively, teachers need to take into account what the learner brings to the school, including all aspects of their language identities, including their use of standard and non-standard dialects.

The emergence of a national curriculum

The Bullock Report had called for all schools to have a policy for language across the curriculum, and in 1987, the National Oracy Project was established and built on these recommendations to enhance the role of speaking and listening in the learning proc...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• 1 Speaking and listening: context and challenge
• 2 Speaking and listening: planning and assessment
• 3 Talking to think: why children need philosophical discussion
• 4 Dynamic talk: speaking, listening and learning through drama
• 5 A classroom community of storytellers: fostering sustained and creative spoken language through story
• 6 Inclusive approaches to communication with children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities
• 7 Conveying the ‘right’ kind of message: respecting the voices and identities of bilingual learners
• 8 Addressing children’s misconceptions in science through talk
• 9 Encouraging mathematical talk
• 10 Computing curriculum: new opportunities for communication and collaboration
• 11 Developing talk through literature circles
• 12 Talk, reading comprehension and writing
• Index