Hi everyone,
Finally getting back to my blog posts on the New Primary Language Curriculum. Today I am going to focus on the Oral Langage Learning Outcome: Social Conventions and Awareness of Others.
You may have used similar strategies for the first learning outcome of Engagement but these strategies can be developed further within this learning outcome.
A conversation station could be developed in any classroom, taking a small spare or area that you can refer to as your converstation station. Within the conversation station you can have prompts to remind the children how to be a good speaker, but also how to listen to their partner or the teacher. I had prompts to remind the children to make eye contact and to listen to the person who was speaking. Your conversation station should be based on a specific topic each week and invite 3-4 children each day to join you in the conversation station.
As they become more familiar with how the conversation station works or as you differentiate for older pupils, you can encourage the children to ask the speaker questions to learn more about their partner/teacher and to develop their questioning skills.
Similarly you can also use a Cúinne Cainte in Gaeilge, to develop conversation with your pupils across the school. Children in the senior classes could also develop their questioning and verb tenses as they respond. They would develop their grammar and vocabulary quickly to engage with the cúinne cainte rather than focusing on a grammar copy book.
Through the conversation station you can make children aware of the skills of both a good speaker good listener, how to demonstrate good listening and to remind the children about their body language and how this might affect the speaker.
Further information and videos about the Conversation Station can be found on Julieanne Devlin’s brilliant site Let’s Get Kids Talking and also on the PDST website
Another amazing resource that I have used in the class to develop the children’s speaking and presentation skills is Let’s Stand. It is a programme developed for Junior Infants to Sixth Class to enable the children to present and deliver effective presentations and speeches. I have used it with Senior Classes and I really noticed the improvement from their body language right up to content and presentation skills.
Each book contains a rubric for a specific set of skills from when they stand up to the end of their speech, they are relevant to the children and I found the rubrics were an excellent form of peer assessment and self assessment. The children can recognise where they are on the rubric and what they need to do to improve the skill they are focusing on.
Let’s Stand is one programme which represents many learning outcomes within the new Primary Language Curriculum and you can find more information on this resource on the site.
If you have any questions about the resources or ideas shared today, please send me a DM.
Stay Safe everyone
Aistear Muinteoir
Aistear Múinteoir 