speaking and listening homework

1. 5 Things I’ll try to remember when in the classroom from these sessions:
a) Remind pupils the importance of listening carefully to each other speaking.
b) Get pupils to work with others who are not their friends so that they can build relationships with the rest of the class.
c) As a teacher, group children together in a random and fair way so that no one is left out because they are not picked to be in a group.
d) Try to come up with an activity that involves building listening skills by focussing the children’s attention to what is being read out.
e) Use activities that involve getting the children out of their seats and getting creative.

2. How I felt myself doing the speaking and listening:
The exercises that we did like repeating every word twice made me think more carefully about every word I was saying and as the listener it made me more aware of each word too. However, it also confused me as to what the other person was trying to say if I allowed my attention to wander. A good exercise to show children that it is important to concentrate on what someone is saying otherwise you may not understand what they are trying to tell you and that is how misunderstandings occur.
Listening to the Alice story was fun but I felt that the questions I was supposed to answer didn’t really add to the exercise as a learning activity. The one where the person had to write the main plot points of the story was a better exercise to do whilst listening to the story as it allowed equal measures of enjoyment and helped the person to concentrate on the storyline.
The other activities were creative and highlighted the need to pay attention to the words spoken in order to fulfil the task required.

3. What it taught me about others/group dynamics etc:
It is important to work together as a team so that the task can be completed successfully and even if one person decides not to co-operate then it can cause great difficulty in getting things done. The Street Party activity showed that it is important for the whole class to get involved for it to be a worthwhile lesson. If everyone did not concentrate on the other groups’ turn to present to the class then it can cause a feeling of unfairness. Overall, these exercises taught me that it can teach children how to work together to enjoy a fun lesson.
4. A) The aims that were ‘hit’ are divided from the 4 main elements to the Primary Strategy, which are group interaction, drama, speaking and listening. Listening to the Alice story ‘hit’ a few of the aims on listening but did not fulfil the whole criteria. The other activities fulfilled the aims of working in pairs and in randomized groups. Drama elements were also touched upon in many of the activities and then built upon in The Street Party exercise. The Auction showed the different team roles. And in the ‘Lend me £50’ game, it would teach children how to use persuasive language or techniques to get someone to believe in their story. The Street Party was the one which incorporated a lot of the aims together in one activity. There was randomized group work, consolidating as a group to retell their version of a story and each team member had a specific role to play. Each group had to present to the whole class and to the teacher whilst using many drama techniques such as a montage freeze-frame then speaking as their character. There were also much more within that one activity.

B) From the useful classroom techniques I would use the ‘All Change!’ game to get children to start thinking about how the inflection changes in the way you say something can mean something different even if you are saying exactly the same words. It will teach them how body language, tone of voice and use of gesture can create a different meaning to words being spoken. This will develop their speaking and presentational skills as is aimed for in the Primary Strategy, which was hinted at in the ‘Lend me £50’ but not as carefully dissected or explored.

Go and see a live performance of a play or watch a video of a live play so that they can have a better idea of how professionals would act as different characters. Let them observe and then write down in their own words how the actors used body language, their voice, and facial expressions to inform the audience of their emotions and how did they get the audience to believe in what they were saying. The aspects of theatre will also be explored by getting the children to draw what they saw. The stage background, the props, the costumes, the lighting and the sound effects will be explored in simple terms.