Oral Language for Learning

Teacher Ready Gibbons

ORAL LANGUAGE FOR LEARNING

We have all seen children move through the stages of acquiring their first language- from babbling to one- word utterances, two- word phrases, full sentences, and eventually, complex grammar. Students learning a second language also move through stages. One of the most important things you should know about each of your EAL/D students is which stage of acquisition they are in. Knowing and understanding the stages and their characteristics are critical for effectively differentiating instruction for these students.

Model: Stages of Language Acquisition

The following model lists the six stages of language acquisition, along with the characteristics and teacher prompts.

When you are familiar with the stages of second language acquisition, you will be more attuned to the appropriate types of questions and prompts to use to engage and motivate students. By understanding your students’ levels of linguistic proficiency, you will become more competent at differentiating instruction to promote linguistic and academic achievement. Your students will be able to participate and feel more confident as they successfully respond.

Explanation: Stages of Language Acquisition

The following explanation lists the five stages of language acquisition, along with the characteristics and teacher prompts.

Developing Spoken Language

Research into language development, including studies in both first and second language acquisition, support the notion of language use as a major principle for language development. Being immersed in language and having access to good language models is of course important, but it is not in itself sufficient to develop language competence. Children who spend a large part of their waking hours in front of the television, for example, may be receiving- depending on the quality of the program- good models of language, but this exposure will not be enough to develop their language. Children also need to use language in interaction with other children and adults. Essential to any learning program for EAL/ D learners is effective instruction in language development. Children need explicit instruction in English vocabulary, as well as opportunities to hear and speak the language throughout the day.

Arrange the classroom in a way that supports each type of instructional activity that will take place, and then keep changes to the physical environment to a minimum. Once EAL/D learners learn which activities take place in various parts of the classroom (e.g., centers, circle), the physical environment will cue them as to what they are to do and how they are to behave in that area. Predictable classroom routines can also provide scaffolding for EAL/D learners by allowing them to anticipate what will happen each day, including the type of language they will need for each activity

What is scaffolding?

Scaffolding – in its more usual sense- is a temporary structure that is often put up in the process of constructing a building. As each bit of the new building is finished, the scaffolding is taken down. In the classroom it portrays the temporary, but essential, nature of the mentor’s assistance in supporting learners to carry out tasks successfully. Scaffolding, however, is not simply another word for ‘help’. It is a special kind of help that assists learners to move toward new skills, concepts, or levels of understanding. Scaffolding is thus the temporary assistance by which a teacher helps a learner know how to do something, so that the learner will later be able to complete a similar task alone. In is future- oriented. As Vygotsky has said, what a child can do with support today, she or he can do alone tomorrow.

Key characteristics of a scaffolded program:

Gibbons outlines the following key characteristics of a scaffolded program-

·  Integration of language with ‘content’

·  Planned opportunities for development of ‘literate spoken language’ development as a bridge to reading and writing

·  Use of scaffolding- gradual release of responsibility

·  Planned use of the first language (Mother Tongue)

·  Message abundance

Meanwhile, Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) identify six features of effective scaffolding. These were:

·  Creating children’s interest in the task

·  Simplifying the task, for example, breaking it into stages

·  Keeping children on track by reminding them of the goal

·  Pointing out key things to do and/ or showing the child other ways of doing parts of the task

·  Controlling the child’s frustration during the task

·  Demonstrating an idealised way of doing the task

The Role of Talk in Learning

Student- student and student- teacher talk can provide rich contexts for second language development. But just allowing talk to occur is not enough. Productive talk does not just happen – it needs to be deliberately and systematically planned, just as we plan for literacy events. How tasks are designed, how group work is set up, and how teachers respond to students all impact on how effective classroom talk is in supporting language development. Sometimes, even quite small changes in how opportunities for talk are set up can have significant effects on how the discourse is played out. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that classroom talk determines whether or not children learn, and their ultimate feelings of self- worth as students.

It is through talk that much learning occurs. Talk allows children to think aloud, to formulate ideas, to set up and evaluate hypotheses and to reach tentative decisions in a context that is not restricted by the more formal demands of written language.

Integrating Language and Content

Language objectives should be planned for, in teaching teams (bilingually if possible) for explicit language objectives at function level (e.g.-generalising) down to word level. In content areas, what language will students need to access this content and do the activities?

Talk can be just as demanding for Language One learners as it is for EAL/D learners, as language/experiences far removed from the context means the speaker has to re-create the scene for the listener and that requires complex language.

Gibbons gives the example of: ‘Tell others’, which is a strategy where learners have three opportunities to tell/ share with others about the learning experience they undertook (for example:- a science experiment or an excursion). Gibbons suggests that three opportunities are provided because each time, the speaker is micro-scaffolded to the literate language. Once the ‘literate language’ is used, the learner can now write!

Often you will do micro-scaffolding intuitively, but this must be planned for and ‘scripted’ so that any teacher utterances (for example: questioning) are open-ended, allowing for learners to do the extended talk and the teacher to listen and wait patiently (which may be for long periods of time, allowing for translation to occur).

Ideas for Language in the Classroom

English language learners need lots of opportunities to engage in social interactions with other children, but they also need support from adults as they develop the language skills they need to negotiate those interactions. You can use the following strategies to foster social interaction:

·  For group activities, pair EAL/D learners with children who have stronger English language skills.

·  Provide opportunities for self-directed activities so that EAL/ D learner can choose activities that match both their interests and their language abilities.

·  Encourage ‘child talk’ by providing prompts when children need help in expressing themselves (e.g., "Tell Shakira, 'May I have the red crayon now?'").

·  Use open questions, or questions that can have multiple answers, to help EAL/ D learners to expand their own utterances (e.g., "Why do you like this doll best?" instead of "What is this doll's name?").

Here are some more examples that you might like to use in order to set up oral language situations (possibly for older children):

Here are some examples, using the model stages:

See checklist of communicative activities- part 11.

Message Abundance

Students prosper best in an environment of message abundance. That is, as many channels of communication as possible are used to support a variety of learning styles and to give the students plenty of time to practice and hear these messages. It is important to note that these messages should be amplified and not simplified. That is, you should give the messages several times in different forms.

Role of the Mother Tongue

As part of the process of scaffolding, teachers need to make a link between the familiar and the new, and in the case of foreign language learning, a link between the language, which is the shared, ‘text book’ like communication among the children, and the language that is to be learnt. This process of scaffolding from the children’s first or second language (depending on the composition of the class) to a foreign language in a formal classroom context is one which may also promote independent language use. It is, however, also recognised that the strategy of scaffolding from the first or second language to the foreign language is not one that will necessarily be available to every teacher since it does depend on the teacher also understanding the children’s language.

Obviously, support in the first language (L1) makes a huge difference to learning. Research shows that learning literacy skills in first language really sets students up for learning in second language (L2). Gibbons outlines one bilingual model (of which there are many):