Talking Hands, empowering learners to speak their minds.

Oral language is becoming an increasingly focused upon area of development where I teach in particular. Last week's PD was on a number of ways to promote speaking in the class. Several strategies were covered, most being reminders of strategies that I have been taught over my limited experience as a teacher or during teacher training.

One strategy which I had initially dismissed was talking hands. Showing learners hand signals they can use for common responses helps them develop the confidence to give their opinion without the pressure of having to say anything. Combining this with conversing with learners rather than questioning them helps teaching them how to have conversations, how to discuss differing opinions, and awareness of how their speech sounds to others.

Reflection on the needs of my target students, I decided to give both the conversation and talking hands strategies a try in class. I used both on my reading groups which yielded reasonable results for the most part, with one group developing the confidence to speak out to correct a peer's incorrect statement in a constructive manner. My maths learners were shown hand signals only, to which there was a good response. 

To develop the confidence to speak in my learners, I will need to continue with the talking hands and conversation style of teaching. Hopefully this will increase their speaking "mileage" and exposure to new vocabulary and ways of communicating my modelling.