High quality oral work is a high currency learning activity when getting our students to think about, organise and articulate their ideas. Often, our students have difficulty expressing themselves and are unaware of the different ways that one person can take part in any given discussion. Here is a way to help students become more confident with their talk whilst also actively supporting ALL students to make at least one point during a discussion.

  1. Prior to the beginning of the group talk, you will have set up the context perhaps using a visual stimulus or text as a focus to the topic to be discussed. E.g. Use a picture of some teenagers wearing hooded tops to provoke thought on the topic: ‘Shopping centres have the right to enforce a dress code on their customers.’
  2. Students are in groups of 5 or 6 ready to start their discussion but before they do they need to use some of the key ‘Discussion’ vocabulary.
  3. Give out only three of each of sets of words on cards – each set has been copied onto different coloured card.
  4. Ask students to read through the cards and put them into coloured sets. As they do this, ask the students to see if they can come up with a category name for each set of cards that explains what they are used for.
  5. Briefly take suggestions for the categories getting students to disagree or agree with each other – do not give any comment on whether the students are right or wrong. Now give out the rest of the cards (you can decide how many of the cards from each set you give out depending on the year group/ability of the class) along with the category title cards and ask the students to match them up. Take no feedback but ask the rhetorical question: were you right?
  6. Ask students to leave the Category headings on their tables and to gather up the other cards and shuffle them.
  7. Teacher models the process that students are about to embark on. Teacher places own set of all cards on the floor/table in from of him/her. Using a different topic from the one you intend the students to discuss (e.g. If students are doing the topic about Shopping Centres, you could model a topic about building a skateboard park in atown centre), teacher (and an LSA or perhaps an able student) models picking up a card and making a point about the topic starting with the words written on the card. Do this for just two or three cards so students can see how the activity works. Explain to students that there are no rules about turn taking other than everyone HAS to pick up at least two cards (you can differentiate this number as you see fit) and once the card has been picked up it must stay in the speaker’s hands. Students can speak as many times as they like.
  8. Remind the students of the topic they are going to discuss.
  9. In their groups of 5 or 6, students find a space in the classroom and stand around in a circle. One student places the cards, face up, on the floor where the whole group can see them.
  10. Giving the students a time limit for the discussion, start the activity.
  11. When giving a ‘x minutes to go’ time check, the teacher will want to reassure the students that not all the cards need to be used for the discussion.
  12. At the end of the activity ask students to return to their desks with their own cards in their hands.
  13. Put the category titles up on the whiteboard and ask students to look at the colours of cards in their hands. Ask them to draw conclusions about the types of comments they were confident about making and the ones they didn’t use. Or perhaps they had a good range of points for different purposes. Were there any patterns? Can students give themselves targets for next time they use talk to discuss something?
  14. It may be that the teacher wants to make a comment on the possibility that the cards could make the ‘flow’ of their discussion more stilted. This would be a good time to ask a general plenary question: How do these cards help us to improve our group talk? Answers could take into account the ideas that this activity is to encourage students to use different and more sophisticated language to indicate their points (which are made for different purposes). It also helps them to understand about their strengths and areas for development as speakers. It also helps to give students stock words and phrases so that repetition is avoided.
  15. Students could take a vote on the topic given at the start of the lesson based on their discussions so that the class can see each other’s views on the topic.

Further Activities using the cards:

  1. Based on students’ conclusions about their confidence when making certain points for certain purposes, students could be asked to only pick up particular card colours to encourage them to make these points.
  2. Students can have the cards face down and will have to choose a card based on it’s colour and make the appropriate point using the words on the card.
  3. A student can choose a card for the person on their right to use.
  4. Students can do a ‘Speed Discussion’ to see how many cards they can get through in a set time. An egg timer is great for this! If all cards aren’t used, each group can have a winning speaker by being the person speaking when time’s up. Students then jostle to make their points using the cards!
  5. Students can have extra blank cards for each colour set to add their own word or phrase starters.