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Oral Language in an Inclusive K2 Classroom

Josh Benjamin

K2 Inclusion Teacher

Winship Elementary

jbenjamin@bostonpublicschools.org

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Student Intro

  • 22 students
  • 7 with ELD levels
  • 6 with IEPs, 2 with 504s
  • Highly diverse:
    • 9 Hispanic
    • 7 Asian
    • 5 white
    • 1 Black

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Strategy

  • Increase the frequency of oral language opportunities through intentional planning of prompts (what to ask) and response formats (how to answer).
  • Increase students’ oral language stamina through peer-to-peer interactions and sparing teacher intervention.

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Prompts (what to ask)

One way of categorizing prompts (there are others):

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A left to right progression can be helpful for including all voices.

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Literal/Closed

(text)

Inferential/Open

(text+brain)

Philosophical/Closed-Open

(text+brain+world)

Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran

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What do the children imagine in Roxaboxen?

What makes Roxaboxen a special place?

The author says that Roxaboxen was “always there.” Is it really possible for something to always be there?

Owls

by Gail Gibbons

When do owls hunt?

How do the parts of an owl’s head make owls good hunters?

Are owls mean when they eat mice?

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Prompts (what to ask)

A few additional prompts:

  • Who am I?
    • Start with a large group of items. Give a series of clues that help students to eliminate items until they figure out who you are.
  • Would you rather?
    • Invite students to share their preference between two options and explain their thinking.
  • What’s the link?
    • Present several items and invite students to share similarities, differences, or connections between some or all of them.
  • Provocative Puppet
    • Use a puppet to articulate a provocative point of view or misconception (i.e., “Women can’t be scientists; that’s crazy”). Invite students to argue with the puppet.

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Responses (how to answer)

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Literal/Closed

(text)

Inferential/Open

(text+brain)

Philosophical/Closed-Open

(text+brain+world)

Teacher-Student-Teacher

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Idea Machine

Turn-and-Talk (short)

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Talk Wheel

Turn-and-Talk (long)

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Circle Talk

Accountability through “I agree,” “I disagree,” “I’m building on,” and using classmates’ names.

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Responses (how to answer)

A few additional response formats:

  • Who am I?
    • Show 7 items: cube, sphere, pyramid, cone, cylinder, rectangular prism, triangle.
    • I am a solid shape.
    • I am not the shape of a cereal box.
    • I can roll.
    • I am not the shape of a basketball.
    • I have a point.
  • Would you rather?
    • Tell students to move to one of three areas on the rug (Option 1, Option 2, I Don’t Know), then invite students to convince their peers of their reasoning, with opportunities to move as they change their minds.

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Process

NEXT

AT FIRST

AND THEN

Make talk easy.

  • What did you have for breakfast?
  • What is your favorite color?
  • Let’s repeat this fun phrase from the book: “...and that was that!"

Accept the messiness.

Use puppets and fishbowl to model.

Make talk frequent.

  • Oral language happens multiple times throughout all content areas.

Make talk take a while.

  • Opportunities for students to engage in at least one long-duration (~10 minutes) talk activity each week.

What steps did you need to take to implement this practice in your setting?

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Roadblocks

All students participate, but not all students participate in the same way, which means that the peer-to-peer responses can sometimes feel strained.

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Impact

Students talk a lot.

Students talk for a long time.

Students talk about interesting stuff:

  • Focus unit 3: This year, we’ve learned that dirt, owls, wolves, and houses have different parts. Does everything have parts?
  • Focus unit 3: At the end of The Three Little Pigs, the pigs boil the wolf and eat him. Is it ever ok to take revenge?
  • Focus unit 4: Would it ever be a good idea to cut down a tree?
  • Focus unit 1: Who decides who you are?
  • Illustrative Math unit 7: Would you rather be a cone or a cube?

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Resources

What resources will help others who want to learn more? (add additional links, images, etc.)

Transform Teaching and Learning Through Talk: The Oracy Imperative

by Amy Gaunt and Alice Stott

More at bostonpublicschools.org/telescope

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Questions?

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Questions?

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Presenter Recommendations

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Artifact template created by BPS/BTU Telescope Network and adapted from Julie Sloan (jsloan@bostonpublicschools.org)

  • Use this template as-is or create your own slideshow or document that addresses the same prompts.
  • Delete and replace images in the template with images, charts, and other examples that help us visualize your change idea. (Pictures of your students and their work are great!)
  • When finished, please share your slideshow with telescope@bostonpublicschools.org so we know you’re done.
  • Set “Share” setting is for “Anyone with the link” or “Boston Public Schools.”
  • Want to use this as an end-of-year artifact? See sample rationale statement in the speaker notes below.