Benefits of 'Assisting Students with Language Delays in the Classroom'

This language programme is designed for teachers to use within the classroom, either with the whole class or with small groups, which can be integrated into the class programme. It caters to the needs of students with a wide range of language abilities, from those with very limited language skills, to the students who find initiating or participating in conversation a challenge. It was created as a result of years spent working with students in the classroom and working closely with their teachers.

The use of Language Charts make it easy to see exactly what skills are required for the development of functional language and the step by step structure of the programme guides teachers to the skill areas appropriate to the language needs of their particular students.

The programme focuses on the three areas of language development, i.e:

·    ‘The Preverbal Skills of Language’, which provide the foundation for the development of language and are essential in order for a student to acquire functional language. These include skills such as; Attending and anticipating; Learning to look and listen; Copying actions and sounds; Waiting and taking turns.

·    ‘The Building Bricks of Language’ are the words and concepts necessary for the development of a student’s practical vocabulary, allowing them to follow instructions, respond to questions and develop their communication skills.

For example; nouns, verbs, prepositions, negatives, sequencing skills.

·    ‘The Skills of Conversation’ are required in order to provide the student with the ability to initiate and maintain an interactive conversation. These are skills such as, Waiting, listening to others and recalling information given; Speaking clearly; Asking and answering conversational questions.

Photo by Ladyheart at Morguefile.com

           

The programme provides teachers with information as to;

·    What skills are important in order to assist a student’s language development.

·    Why these skills are important, providing clear explanations of the significance of each skill and key points to remember when teaching that skill.

·    How to teach these skills, providing 180 practical activities and fun exercises to assist the development of each skill. These exercises and activities can easily be incorporated into the regular class routine and programme.

The activities in all three areas are purposely ‘Low Tech’ so the majority of resources should be readily available within most classrooms or schools. 

- Francesca Bierens

Speechmark author of Assisting Students with Language Delays in the Classroom

Helping students with visual theraurus

 Picture this scene in a writing lesson at school: the experienced teacher has a small queue of fidgety eight year old children, waiting for her attention, as they had completed their story about a recent holiday trip. Each page had been beautiful drafted, featuring many of the key targets for each individual child’s progress. As the teacher went through the essays, one by one, she discovered a common problem – her class had no understanding of how to improve their work using a thesaurus. They had successfully removed the words ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ from their pages, just as she had instructed, and replaced them with substitutes such as depressed, suicidal and ecstatic, none of which made sense in the context. But, why should they? The children had no idea what these words mean!

Photo by jdurham at Morguefile.com

That night, being the conscientious soul that she was, she tossed and turned, trying to overcome this problem in a simple way which didn’t require her to have children constantly asking her for help in identifying better words. As she dreamt, the queue to her table grew longer and longer, snaking down the corridor all the way to the Head teacher’s office! The next morning, tired and cold, she stumbled to school, grabbed a coffee and sat down, sullen and alone in her classroom. She felt powerless to know how to act.

Just at that moment, a colleague from her year group came round the corner and, having seen her bedraggled condition, listened to her problem. She hurriedly left the room, before returning with slightly red cheeks and a multi-coloured book in her hands. It was the solution to her class needs – ‘The Visual Emotional Thesaurus’!

“Each book is like a mini-teacher that can be left in the middle of the children’s table. The book explains to the class through images and examples, how to improve their writing and broaden their emotional language effectively. It has banished ‘happy’, ‘sad’ and a multitude of repetitious vocabulary from their writing. Moreover, even children who used to struggle to grasp thesauri found the images enabled them to access the book too! I can come and teach the children how to use the book today, if you will allow me to, and I guarantee that your children will have a clearer understanding of how to enrich their description of characters by the end of the half hour.”

Photo by kakisky at Morguefile.com

Our class teacher nodded, pleased that the children would have a way forward, and that tonight, she would get a well deserved night’s sleep.

-Ian Long

Speechmark author of The Blob Visual Emotional Thesaurus