Chapter 6: Oracy Instruction That Builds on the First Language
This chapter explores the topic of oracy skills. Communication includes listening, speaking, writing and reading. To begin, students practice the skill of listening. Educators must find creative ways to provide activities students will engage in. Listening centers, books on CD, tape recorders, music, are just a few ideas discussed. Speaking skills are also an important skill EL students must master. Teachers can provide students with pre-speaking strategies so that they feel comfortable speaking in a language other than their home language. “English learners need environments that help them to meet the social, emotional, cognitive, and linguistic demands of their lives in and out of school. Students need an emotional setting, a climate of trust and respect, in which they need not fear ridicule from their peers or corrections from the teacher” (Diaz-Rico, pp 154-155).
This is a web site with ideas for listening centers for young children. atozteacherstuff.com/Lesson_Plans
K. Powell's blog stated all the reasons we as teachers need to support our students. She wrote that educators need to provide warm up activities to that ELL feel confident speaking, reading, writing, and spelling. Therefore educators need to look for intovative ways to encourage oracy. Activities where students can pair up with other students who speak the same language, interviews and other language producing lessons are just some of the suggestions she listed.
ReplyDeleteBob Perez expressed the importance of oral language in various settings. It is true that students need to be able to express themselves before they can fully learn the target language. However, there are many forms of self expression. I have many students in the silent phase. We use art and role-play to draw out language they would not normally express. Sometimes we work for months on three word sentences. In other words oracy is not alway automatic. We have before us students who have many deficits, language is a major one. It is up to us to develop those skills by using a multitude of activities and strategies.
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