Alice on speaking and listening

1. Things to remember from these sessions when I am in the classroom:

(i) It helps to give children a task to focus on when doing listening exercises. However, it is important for these to be structured in such a way that they are not too contained so you only focus on specifics (like the comprehension questions) and that they are not too open and therefore too daunting (like the write anything you want task).
(ii) Drama is a useful way to diversify lessons and get students moving around, although it is important to wait until a class is comfortable with each other (really glad I didn’t have to pretend to be a crab on our first day) and that activates are built up gradually to get the best response and participation.
(iii) It is useful to assign tasks to members in team games to ensure a team effort.
(iv) Any task in the classroom needs to be explained succinctly and clearly. It is worthwhile checking back with students to make sure they understand when playing new or complicated games.
(v) There are lots of different ways to divide a group and it is useful to vary techniques to ensure that students sometimes work with someone new for a different experience.

2. I really liked Alice in Wonderland listening task and found that writing key points in the narrative helped me to concentrate without spoiling my enjoyment of the story, I was surprised to consider all the different styles of guiding listening and found individual feedback in this area particularly enlightening.
Once I got into the high tide, low tide game I did enjoy it, although the idea of letting my students loose like that does fill me with fear.
The How How game really helped me to relax into the class, particularly as I sometimes get nervous when doing drama activities (amazing for someone who talks so much, I know).
I am astonished at how talented Jo turned out to be when reading aloud and being questioned by Immalee and I, she gave some full and detailed answers. I’m not convinced I would be so patient; I would be more likely to walk off and read elsewhere!
My favourite game of the day was certainly the auction… just love a good competition! That is definitely going into the good ideas book, in fact ill probably end out introducing it to the Walker Family Christmas this year!

3. I have learnt that drama does not always have to be so chaotic in class and that there is certainly a place for it in English. When structured well, it allows students to express themselves, consider their actions and appreciate different viewpoints in a variety of ways.

4. b) Hits
• Use a range of oral techniques to present persuasive arguments and engaging narratives – Money borrowing game
• Listen with sustained concentration – Alice in Wonderland
• Support and build on each others contributions – WWI activity
• Challenge children to move beyond the familiar and everyday – What are you doing game, amongst others!
• Explore familiar themes through improvisation and role-play – WWI activity

c) There remain a number of objectives in the primary strategy that we did not achieve (although we did pretty well for a days work!). By extending the Alice in Wonderland task, we could have tried to retell the story in our own words, which would achieve one of the criteria for year 1 speaking. In order to achieve the year 6 objectives for speaking, we could have set up a formal debate to decide on the best-guided task for the Alice in wonderland listening activity.
A mediation activity could be prepared to consider examples of conflict and resolution; students could consider the use of language throughout a conflict and how this changes when a resolution is made (would be great fun use something from Jerry Springer, although probably not with primary school children!)