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LANGUAGE FOR LEARNING POLICY AND GUIDANCE MATERIAL (...)
APPENDIX A
ACTIVITIES AND TECHNIQUES WHICH HELP DEVELOP STUDENTS’ LANGUAGE SKILLS
Speaking and Listening
Students can develop their thinking by talking through an issue with either their peers, their teacher or an outsider. Group discussions offer opportunities for all students to take part, but these should be focused and have an end product or outcome. Focused activities might include:
* preparing for a scientific investigation
* preparing a presentation about fieldwork
* making judgements about their own and others’ performance
* getting information from each other about diet, behaviour or habits.
Students should be encouraged to use standard English in formal talk situations.
Students should be encouraged to move from everyday language to more specialised vocabulary. This vocabulary can be made readily available through work displays, boardwork, prompt sheets etc.
Activities for speaking and listening should be varied and could include:
* whole class discussion of an issue
* the presentation of a report of an investigation to the whole class
* taking part in a role play activity with the roles prepared through research
* listening to and asking questions of a visiting speaker
There should be ground rules for oral work established across the board. (See page 14)
Further suggestions for integrating Speaking and Listening activities across the curriculum appear in Appendix F pp32-35.
Reading
Access to learning is restricted for students whose reading skills are limited, because so much of what they are expected to learn appears as written text. This can take many forms:
* text books
* reference books
* CD Rom/Internet
* fiction and poetry
* newspapers, magazines and periodicals
* reports/publications from a variety of organisations
Students with major reading problems are supported by the Learning Support Department, and channels of communication about the progress of the students are clear. However, all students will benefit from help with reading the more demanding material required in KS3 if they are to progress. This is particularly true of non-fiction texts, which research by David Wray has shown, have not featured as prominently as fiction texts in the reading diet of primary school pupils.
There are many useful activities to improve reading skills:
* paired reading, in which the teacher and student read aloud together from the same text
* the summary and reconstruction of text in such forms as tables, flow charts and diagrams. These constructions provide useful summary notes for pupils at the same time as increasing their ability to make sense of what they read.
* the provision for students of texts at appropriate reading levels. This may involve differentiated versions of texts, which can be prepared by the L.S. Dept. Tests to determine the reading age of texts are included in the appendix.
* helping students to learn the specialist vocabulary of each subject. This can be achieved through wall displays of subject-specific vocabulary, or by clear labeling of equipment drawers, or by word games such as “Clear the Board” (see “Language for Learning” p30)
* the issuing of students with a word book, or having a section of their note books retained for language use.
* KWL grids – what do I Know; what do I Want to find out; what did I Learn?
* the use of DARTs, a complete list of which appears in Appendix D pp17-18.
* the EXIT model for interacting with texts (see appendix C p16)
For many examples of this and other reading strategies, refer to Appendix F pp36-40.
Writing
Writing can serve many purposes, such as to provide the teacher with evidence of learning, to help students to clarify their thinking or to provide data for future work. The type of writing can vary from simple words (lists, labels, completion exercises) to phrases (notes, diagrams), paragraphs and more sustained writing.
The real or imagined audience can be varied, including:
* the teacher as examiner/assessor
* self (diaries, notes)
* younger readers
* the rest of the class or parents
There are many ways to help students to become better writers.
These include:
* prior discussion about what is to be written, or the sharing of vocabulary, spellings and ideas for starting writing
* being specific about the audience for the writing, and exploring how work for this audience might look
* sharing students’ good and poor examples of the written genre required
* encouraging drafting, re-drafting, editing and proof-reading of written work
* devoting lessons to the development of particular writing skills
* using writing frames to help students to structure their work and to connect ideas together in a purposeful manner. These structures should then be gradually phased out, encouraging students to write without them.
* classroom displays illustrating non-fiction writing types
* limiting the use of copying of written material from within the board or other tests
* using scaffolding techniques – demonstration / joint activity / supported activity / individual activity
* encouraging the use of word processors to achieve polished final drafts.
For many classroom examples of Language for Learning strategies for the teaching of writing at KS3, refer to Appendix F
Vocabulary and Spelling
Vocabulary and spelling appears as a separate strand in QCA’s Language for Learning objectives (page 24) and there is a strong correlation between these objectives and our existing policy of spelling. There are, however, many useful suggestions for how to achieve the objectives, including:
* the use of a portable “grippy board” to display subject specific words which can be quickly removed or changed, to encourage look-cover-write-check games
* the issuing of small key-word booklets by departments at the start of the course
* the emphasis of shared word roots through their definition in tandem, such as conquer/conquest, invade/invader/invasion.
These and many more suggestions appear in Appendix F.
Ground Rules for Oral Work
Suggested Approaches:
* Establish a contract “we are going to work in groups. Do you agree to take part in these ways on the understanding that if you don’t, then these awful things will happen”. Thereafter, insist upon respect for other in oral work.
* Insist as far as practicable on the use of standard English in formal talk situation such as talks, solo or group presentations or debates (limit use of “like”, “kinda”, “it were”,and other dialect/slang forms, as in “it were like, you know, kinda like”.
* Insist on supportive listening – a good way to encourage this is to ask the audience to be prepared to ask one question each of the speaker.
* During whole class discussion / question and answering activities, insist on a “hands up before speaking” policy.
* Group work
* try to visit each group as regularly as possible
* encourage all members of each group to contribute. A good way to do this is through regular self-evaluation exercises, through which students become more aware of their role within a group.
APPENDIX B
Assessing the Reading Age of a Book
* Select a sample of exactly 100 words.
* Count number of complete sentences in the sample
* Count the total number of words in these complete sentences.
* Divide the number of words in the complete sentences by the number of sentences.
This gives average sentence length.
* Count the number of words of 3 or more syllables in the sample.
This gives the percentage of long words.
* Average sentence length + percentage of long words.
Then multiply by 0.4 and add 3.
Answer gives approximate Reading Age
APPENDIX C
EXIT: Extending Interactions with Text
| Process Stages | Questions | Teaching Strategies |
| Activation of previous knowledge | What do I already know about this subject? | Brainstorming, concept mapping, KWL grids |
| Establishing purposes | What do I need to find out and what will I do with the information? | Question setting, QUADS grids, KWL grids |
| Locating information | Where and how will I get this information? | Situating the learning |
| Adopting an appropriate strategy | How should I use this source of information to get what I need? | Metacognitive discussion, modelling |
| Interacting with text | What can I do to help me understand this better? | DARTs, text marking, text restructuring, genre exchange. |
| Monitoring understanding | What can I do if there are parts I do not understand? | Modelling, strategy charts, grids |
| Making a record | What should I make a note of from this information? | Modelling, writing frames, grids |
| Evaluating information | Should I believe this information? | Modelling, discussing biased texts |
| Assisting memory | How can I help myself remember the important parts? | Revisit, review, restructuring |
| * Communicating information | How should I let other people know about this? | Writing in a range of genres, writing games, publishing non-fiction books, drama, 2D/3D work, other alternative outcomes |
APPENDIX E
Language for Learning: Expectations and Objectives
This Appendix is taken from the QCA document Language for Learning and describes:
* what most students should be able to do independently in using language to support their work in subjects across the curriculum (expectations)
* the areas of language development which need to be taught or reinforced explicitly if students are to achieve the expectations (objectives)
Expectations aim to:
* harmonise the approach to language for learning across the curriculum
* build on level 4 competence expected of most students in English by the end of year 6
* consolidate the level 4 achievement in subjects across the curriculum
* identify useful objectives which can be built into planning and teaching in key stage 3
Objectives aim to:
* identify language use which needs to be part of the learning process in every subject area, if the expectations are to be achieved
* help staff to recognise and use progressively difficult strategies for the improved language development of students
APPENDIX F
Language for Learning: Classroom based examples from different subjects.
These examples are taken from the QCA Language for Learning booklet, and provide a useful range of activities and tasks which will help language development in many subjects.
For each objective (see Appendix E) there are illustrations of how teachers from different areas have integrated work focused on that objective into their teaching.
It would be too restrictive to read only the examples taken from your subject/s. Examples from single subjects can often be applied in several other contexts.
July: July 2004
Review: July 2006