Taught badly, SPaG could be dry, and fail to enthuse children......so...

...let’s heed the advice that this person has left us...

Listening for Literacyfor EAL students

So ...what are the implications for us and SPaG? Let children hear recordings to appreciate the pauses, intonation,

emphasis, and expression needed to really bring SPaG alive. Give children kudos for performing text out loud.

‘Words mean more than what is set down on paper.

It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.’ Maya Angelou

"Her voice slid in and curved down through and over the words. She was nearly singing."

As she relates it, the turning point in Angelou’s life came when she heard her teacher, Mrs Flowers, read from Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities:

Implications for EAL studentsmuch smaller store of

listening and speaking knowledgerhythm of English schwa

crucialrepeated listening

at school

at home

Implications for EAL students While non-EAL students are reapplying their

listening and speaking store of English language which they have acquired before tackling the reading process...

... EAL students have a

much smaller store of listening & speaking knowledge on which to base their pronunciation, intonation and expression...

...which makes it

crucial for them to have access to repeated listening at school

and at home

What kind of Listening?

Short fiction

• models of reading• by staff – so we involve staff from different departments (highlighting literacy to them)• enhances comprehension

Make into a role play

Songs for

curricular links with poetrygrammar exercises

turning into role-plays

Need to be chosen carefully

Headphoneslearning off-by-heart

catch them out

most EAL students are not hamstrung by having to feel hip/cool about the latest sounds

Other texts

Link to in-class work

by adapting a text

PUT IN SCIENCE or HISTORY TOPIC

On the hoof improvisationwhen something crops up in a lesson

MOBILE PHONE and piece of text from exercise book