Concept Star - speak, please!

How do I promote speaking and sharing ideas to my maths learners? I had no idea. I have hunches that there are confidence issues as well as oral language issues as I have discussed before. The ideas mentioned revolved around ESOL and underdeveloped oral language skills, however I also noticed that my learners for reading and writing (whom shouldn't have many issues with communication) were willing to share ideas within small groups, but not as a class.

After trying a talking hands approach and gaining some traction, I decided to try using a Concept Star with my reading groups as a testing ground before using it with my maths learners. Concept Stars are used by learners to note down concepts the have learned before telling others. See how it was used with two of my reading groups here:

Here is a Google Drawing template of the Concept Star adapted from the TKI ESOL Online page about speaking strategies. If you use this template, please leave a comment about how your lesson went.

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.