Shhh! Keep Talking.
I started my teaching career 20 years ago. At that time, a quiet classroom was considered a very well run, successful room with a competent teacher. My we have come a long way! Oral language is now a crucial aspect of literacy instruction.
What Is Oral Language?
Oral language sometimes called spoken language includes speaking and listening -the ways that humans use language to communicate with each other. Speaking and listening skills have now become common core state standards. I have attached just the K standards for you to see that this oral language expectation begins in the first year of schooling. However, research explains that it is important for oral language to continue throughout all grade levels.
Standards for K:
Comprehension and Collaboration:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.K.1
Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., listening to others and taking turns speaking about the topics and texts under discussion).
Continue a conversation through multiple exchanges.
Ask and answer questions in order to seek help, get information, or clarify something that is not understood.
Speak audibly and express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly.
Why is oral language important? What does the research say?
- Oral language leads the way to written language(Wallach & Butler,1994.)
- Reading is a language -based skill (Catts & Kamhi,1986). The relationship between oral language and reading is reciprocal(Kamhi & Catts,1989)with each influencing the other to varying degrees as children progress through school.
- A child's oral language skills provide the foundation for both aspects of reading-word reading and language comprehension-and serve as a foundation and predictor of both (Dickenson,Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek,2010).
Activities to develop oral language in the classroom:
Fishbowl-one group of students have a focused discussion and the rest of the class sits around them in a circle and observes the discussion. The teacher and students are looking for positive examples of oral language and ways to improve the discussion techniques.
Flipgrid is a way to improve students' oral language. This is a great way especially now due to distance learning.
Google meets help students learn to listen to classmates and respond to a classmate or teacher. This promotes positive oral language.
Turn and talk- the teacher poses a prompt and the students turn and discuss this with a partner, they then share out with the class. This can then transfer into a writing activity, where the student gets back and writes what they said aloud.
So as we continue to grow and move forward in education, I hope when we hear a " focused" loud classroom, we recognize it as a great one!
Resources:
Farral,M(2012) Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy and Cognition.
Hoboken,NJ :John Wiley&Sons
Moats,L(2000). Speech to Print.
Baltimore ,MD:Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Related resources:
https://www.readingrockets.org/article/taking-delight-words-using-oral-language-build-young-childrens-vocabularies
Flipgrid is a way to improve students' oral language. This is a great way especially now due to distance learning.
Google meets help students learn to listen to classmates and respond to a classmate or teacher. This promotes positive oral language.
Turn and talk- the teacher poses a prompt and the students turn and discuss this with a partner, they then share out with the class. This can then transfer into a writing activity, where the student gets back and writes what they said aloud.
So as we continue to grow and move forward in education, I hope when we hear a " focused" loud classroom, we recognize it as a great one!
Resources:
Farral,M(2012) Reading Assessment: Linking Language, Literacy and Cognition.
Hoboken,NJ :John Wiley&Sons
Moats,L(2000). Speech to Print.
Baltimore ,MD:Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Related resources:
Hey Kelly! I really enjoyed your blog and liked how you drew upon you own experiences to show just how much the classroom has changed. Something that caught my attention immediately was the fact that a classrooms effectiveness and how well it was run was based off of a quiet classroom. It is amazing to see how much that has changed because most of the classrooms that you pass now are filled with chatter and conversations. I like how you incorporated different activities to develop oral language in the classroom. I think that Flipgrid and Google Meets have really skyrocketed in the classroom especially because of COVID. Teachers have to turn to these platforms in order to allow the students to communicate with their class and with you. It is important to get them to develop their oral language skills and I think that these are two great platforms to practice with especially during this pandemic. Really great blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly! Thank you for sharing this blog post about oral language. I learned exactly what oral language is and how a teacher can foster it within the classroom. I especially liked the four activities that you mentioned that help to develop oral language in the classroom. I've used all four of these resources, as both a teacher and a student, and think they are all effective ways to spark class discussion. Something I noticed that all of these tools have in common is that they are collaborative. They require effort and participation from all students in the class in order to reap the most positive benefits. This is because a big part of oral language development is dependent on communication with others. This reminded me of how important it is for parents to talk to their newborn babies to foster this skill at a very early age. The more a parent or teacher communicates with a child, the more likely they are to develop literacy skills. Overall, awesome and informative post!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly! I loved reading your blog post. I completely agree, oral language is such an important part in literacy development. I love the fishbowl activity. It is such an engaging activity to build students oral language. I really like the anchor chart with the sentence starters. Sentence starters are very helpful for not only ELL students but the entire class. I really like Flipgrid, I think this can be very helpful with maintaining a child's oral language during this "online learning" time. I like how they are able to play the videos back and hear themselves speaking. Being a Kindergarten teacher for the last 6 years I feel like the practice of oral language happens all day long even though we may not specifically working on it in that moment. Thanks for sharing Kel!
ReplyDeleteKatie Pensiero
Hi Kelly, I really liked your post! It is so true that oral language is so important for students to practice throughout every grade level as it will help them become confident speakers when they are older. I really liked that you provided four different ways to have students practice their oral language skills. The chart that you included is so helpful and a great resources to create with students while discussing what oral language looks like. I know I have seen a lot of students benefit from the opportunity to turn and talk to a partner during a lesson. They are able to break down what they are seeing and hearing and given time to ask questions about anything they might not have understood. I agree with you that a "great" classroom is also a loud but focused one! Great job!
ReplyDeleteOral language is such a crucial skill that is often overlooked when overshadowed by the curriculum. The strategies you incorporated into your blog are great jumping off points to have students engage in both speaking and listening. The chart you included with the sentence starters is also very useful. Students need to be taught explicitly how to listen and take in information and using those types of sentence starters will help to guide them as to what they should be listening for. Thanks for sharing Kelly!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly! I really enjoyed your blog post! First off, your title was super captivating and immediately made me intrigued to read your blog. I think oral language is so important to know about, especially for teachers, and how important it is in the classroom. Adding the standards in made it extra helpful to understand how oral language ties. I always knew it was important for students to speak in class, but I did not realize that previously, it was beneficial to have a quiet classroom! In addition, the activities you posted, I have not only done myself, but have also seen other teachers use them in their classroom, especially turn and talks. Turn and talks have become and everyday occurrence in almost all of the classrooms I have been in. It definitely helps with oral language in the classroom as students are talking to one another about various topics. I also love how you added in the discussion sentence starter picture. This is a poster that I would definitely create for my classroom to help provoke thoughtful sentences! Overall awesome post! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly! This was a great post. I think that oral language is one of the most important aspects in school and, like Sharlene mentioned above, it is often overshadowed by all the other demands and content that teachers are expected to get through. In young classrooms the development of oral language is especially important. My favorite one of your suggestions for how to develop it in the classroom is turn and talks. All throughout my student teaching and during my current internship I think I can honestly say that I use turn and talk at least once a day. In my schooling experiences I've done sooo many fishbowl discussions and even though I found them somewhat awkward it definitely helped me develop my oral language skills in a really effective way. I can't wait to get back into the classroom to try your other ideas with students! Thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, it was a pleasure reading your post. The topic you chose, oral language, is parallel with literacy and now digital literacy. It is intriguing to hear from you having starting your career 20 years ago, to see the classroom differences and similarities, as well as how you adapt techniques over time. I like how you structured your post, grabbing the readers attention then providing information about your topic and ending with examples. It is clear to see after reading how important the teaching and use of oral language is to literacy as a whole. The examples you used were helpful and can be used in any classroom setting. Thanks for sharing this post!
ReplyDeleteHi Kel, I agree with you - oral language is key! It strengthens students reading, writing, vocabulary skills, communication skills, etc. I like how you incorporated the multiple Common Core State Standards to show how necessary oral language is for the younger kiddos. It is extremely important for at students especially English Learners and for students who speak dual languages. The activities are a great resource to incorporate more oral language into the classroom in a fun way. I have to give my students more opportunity with the fishbowl technique and will definitely be utilizing flipgrid as a way to support oral language! I liked the "talking tips" anchor chart that the teacher used in the video - adding big sticky notes with simple directions adds a great visual for students to reference.
ReplyDeleteo Hi Kelly! I really enjoyed reading your blog. I do see the importance of oral language become an important factor with literacy instruction. We want students to respond to readings and talk about what they think can occur in books. I actually didn’t know that speaking and listening skills are a part of the common core state standards – that is something important to know before I start my student teaching! After looking at the Kindergarten standards you included, that is so interesting how much they put and emphasis on oral language. I really like your ideas of activities that can help to develop oral language in the classroom. I have seen a lot of these get done at my internship. I know with distance learning, the teachers really try to hold Google meets and they are even starting to incorporate Flipgrid into their weekly assignments. These two activities are a great way to keep oral language active through distance learning because of the pandemic. Thanks for all the great ideas relating to oral language – I can’t wait to try them in my future classroom!
ReplyDeleteI really like reading your blog. I agree that we have come a long way in that it is okay if learning sometimes sounds loud! Collaboration is so important in the classroom and helps build those oral language skills. I love using turn and talk, it is a great way for students to bounce ideas off each other as well as learn new vocabulary! I also love the sentence starters, similar to the Try It where students were taught how to respectfully and kindly comment on their classmates work. It is important that we teach students how to have a productive conversation using oral language too! Great job!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly, this is such a interesting topic! Oral language, discussion and communication are essentially to all types of learning since forever pretty much! A lot of times students, don't necessarily want to participate in this even though they maybe be thinking about quite a lot that pertains to the task at hand. I think you give a great background overview on this topic and detail amazing ways to facilitate this. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteHey Kelly! I loved reading your blog, I thought your title was super engaging and made me very excited to continue reading on. Oral language is such an important factor to better a students education. Not only in school, but students need this skill outside the classroom. Something that stood out to me in your blog was how you described the different ways to implement oral language in your classroom. They were all such great ideas, especially the fishbowl and turn and talks. Even as a college student I have done both of those. I think these are very helpful to students and I would love to incorporate these in the future. I also really liked your picture of the "discussion sentence starters." I loved how it was broken down into speaker, listener, and builder. Overall, this blog was very thorough and clearly laid out. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHi Kelly! I was very drawn into your blog post from the very beginning. I love how you began by contrasting a classroom 20 years ago to a classroom today. This really does show how important oral language has become in terms of literacy instruction in the classroom. I also love the title of your blog for the same reason, it is clever and very engaging. I thought it was great how you included standards in your blog post so we as readers could see exactly what expectations would have to be met at the Kindergarten level. This showed that oral language expectations begin at the very start of schooling for young children. The activities that you included to help develop oral language in the classroom are activities that I will definitely be using with my future classroom! I especially liked how you provided the example of Flipgrid because as you said this is a tool that can also be used while teaching remotely, which as we know is the only form of teaching that is happening in our world today. Great job on your post!
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