Oral Language in Senior Classes

Hi everyone, I hope you are settling back into school after the holidays.

I have decided to focus on Oral Language with my class until midterm. Aistear in the infants plays such an important role in developing oral language skills and developing vocabulary in line with each topic, however I felt that in my senior class the value of oral language was beginning to get overlooked.

As you may have guessed I love board games and there are many different types of board games that focus on Oral Language. An Irish game 30 seconds is excellent for developing describing skills and to encourage thinking too. Articulate is another great describing game which is also available in a junior version.

Chain Reaction is another game where the children work in teams on a specific challenge card. These challenge cards can be listing breeds of dogs to listing designers for women’s fashion. The teams have a limited time to list as many as they can for their specific challenge and the other team must listen carefully because they have the opportunity to contest any of the answers given at the end. This game is advertised at 12+ so some cards may not be appropriate for all children. My class have been playing it the last few days and are really enjoying it. It is encouraging those who may be reluctant to speak out to participate and those who may have difficulty with reading and writing are also more eager to participate.

Having played this game in English, my Irish lessons this week were less attractive to the class. We are covering the theme Sa Bhaile and while they play word tennis with their partners they were beginning to lose interest in it. So today we decided to make our own categories game for our Irish lessons. The children listed their own categories which included topics covered in other themes, Éadaí, Bia and Mé Féin. I am working on the cards and hopefully they will be added to my Mash.ie store soon. I will also let you know the progress in class after playing the game.

If you have any questions on the above post please send me a PM.

A.M.

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