Must Have Resources to Target Oral Language
When you work with high school students, you plan for a session but sometimes that plan is not the right fit for that day. There are many times at the start of a session that the students start making requests; “I don’t feel well, can we just talk today?” Little do those students realize that a request to talk is music to our ears, especially with our freshmen. Not only do we have an opportunity to work on social language, but we have just hit the jackpot and can now target the gateway goal of ‘Oral Language’. When we break down the 24 hours in a day, the majority of our day is spent communicating and for some people that is done primarily through oral language.
What is Oral Language?
Oral Language is a crucial starting point for Speech and Language Pathologists, especially those working with older students. Research continues to show the impact oral language has on both receptive and expressive language development. There are a variety of activities and strategies we can introduce to our students to work on oral language development, but our favorites are ‘Roles in a Conversation’, ‘Accountable Talk’, and ‘I See, I Think, I Wonder’.
What are the 5 components of oral language instruction?
This question goes back to the idea of oral language impacting both receptive and expressive language. The 5 components of oral language are; promoting auditory memory, developing listening and speaking skills, teaching a variety of spoken texts, creating a rich language learning environment, and extending vocabulary knowledge.
What are the skills needed in oral language?
There are a variety of skills needed when targeting oral language. A student needs to have the ability to engage in a meaningful conversation and discussion. This isn’t just asking “What did you do today?” This goes beyond that and expects students to initiate, respond, extend, comment, and even question during a conversation or discussion.
How do you support oral language in the classroom?
This is such an important question for speech and language providers to consider because this relates to the generalization of skills from the therapy room to the classroom. There are a variety of strategies but the two that we love to use are ‘Accountable Talk’ and ‘Roles in a Conversation’. Both strategies provide students with sentence starters which often gives students the confidence to participate in a class discussion. Another useful suggestion would be to have a conversation with the classroom teacher and ask them to provide the class with small group discussion opportunities. Even partner turn and talk activities increase the student’s opportunity to use oral language in a meaningful way within the classroom environment.
What is the importance of oral language for learners?
Oral language is the bridge between literacy and writing skills for students. Students will be expected to use oral language throughout their educational career and beyond. Oral language is how students can connect with teachers, peers, and future employers. This is an ongoing goal for students which further enhances the importance of prioritizing oral language.
When you think and/or hear about oral language you might be wondering, “How hard can this be to teach? Just tell students to ask and answer questions.” Well that is exactly why we target oral language because it is not that easy. There are a variety of strategies that help students engage in conversation and discussions in meaningful ways. We have developed a variety of resources that give students multiple opportunities to learn, use, and practice their oral language. The following resources are our Must Have Oral Language Resources. Our students love using these resources and we know your students will too!
This packet breaks down three widely used strategies; Roles in a Conversation, Accountable Talk, and See-Think-Wonder. The resource reviews the importance of speaker and listener responsibilities; many students do not realize how equally important both of those roles are in a discussion. The best part of this resource are the rubrics which provide a teacher the ability to evaluate the student but also an opportunity for the student to self-evaluate. When learning a new strategy, it is critical that your students take ownership of their progress to keep them engaged throughout the process. This packet will keep your students engaged!
Our next Must Have is a bundle that not only targets oral language, but also incorporates holidays and seasons.
- New Year’s Eve
- Valentine’s Day
- St. Patrick’s Day
- Spring
- Earth Day
- Patriotic Holidays
- Summer
- Fall
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Winter
The resources in this bundle are ‘Would You Rather’ activities. You present different questions to your group or class of students and the students are expected to pick one option. For example: “Would you rather get lost in a corn maze or get lost on a hayride?” The student needs to pick either corn maze or hayride and support their claim. This activity is best when you have the students share their responses to the group. Most of the time the groups are split on their responses and they each have to explain their choices. This resource is great for both the in-person student and virtual student. We love having options and the best part about this resource is that it is one of our most popular FREEBIES!!
3. Roles in a Conversation Poster
Our final Must Have oral language resource is one of our newly designed ‘Roles in a Conversation’ poster. Whenever we are teaching our students a strategy we like to hang up a visual in our classroom. This poster helps our students recall and use the newly taught strategy. Many of our students are visual learners and benefit from having those visual prompts when engaging in a discussion/conversation. Guess what…this poster is also a FREEBIE!
If you have bought from our store before or are a new supporter, our materials are all geared towards older students. We know this can be a tough population when lesson planning, so we design our materials with you in mind and make them low-prep or no-prep. Remember, when a student asks to spend a session ‘just talking’ we have you covered. Comment below with what you do in your room to get your kids talking.
