Oral language for novice teachers

1. What?
How?
Why?
Make it your Own!
Students with limited verbal skills can be supported with the strategies featured in Easy
Guides: Oral language for beginners. The following methods for promoting oral language for
students at the beginning stages include: Description/Self-talk, Narration/Parallel talk,
Modeling language, Repetition, and Extension.
Teachers can create opportunities to build beginning oral language skills by incorporating self
talk, parallel talk, language modeling, repetition, and extension into the daily routine. The Easy
Guide: Oral language for beginners can be used as a reminder to use these strategies on a
daily basis, especially with students who need support in the beginning stages of language
learning.
The language that children learn depends on the language learning opportunities provided.
Speaking and listening skills learned in the preschool years are essential to future reading and
writing achievement and school success. By providing and modeling rich language input for
students, labeling words and actions in natural contexts, conveying a message of interest
through narration of the child’s actions and repetitions and extensions of the student’s limited
language, teachers pave the way for more advanced language learning.
For teachers
Building on your student’s interests forms the basis of strategies like parallel talk,
repetition, and extension. Remember that you are most likely to build a child’s
language when focusing on a topic that is meaningful to that student. You may
choose to use gestures or point to objects that represent words to aid understanding.
If you are using these strategies with a student, consider sharing the corresponding
‘Easy Guide for Families’ with that student’s family.
Oral Language
Communication Toolkit
Oral language for beginners
www.simplifiedstrategies.org

2. SimplifiedStrategies
CommunicationToolkit
Orallanguageforbeginners
CommunicationToolkit
SimplifiedStrategies,LLC-www.simplifiedstrategies.org Strategies
Repetition Extension
Description/Self-talk Narration/Paralleltalk
Inrepetition,theteacherlistenstowhatthe
studentsaysthenrestatesthechild’swords
morecompletely.Forexample,ifastudent
ispushingacarandsays“carfast,”a
teachermightrestate:“Yes,yourcaris
goingfast.”Repetitionisawaytousethe
student’sinterestasabasisforintroducing
moreadvancedvocabularyandsentencemoreadvancedvocabularyandsentence
structures.
Inextension,theteacherrestatesthe
student’scommentthenaddstothetopic
inanefforttoextendtheconversation.In
the“carfast”example,ateachermight
extend:“Yes,yourcarisgoingfast.It
seemslikeyourcarisracing.”Extension,
likerepetition,isawaytoexposestudents
tonewvocabularyandsentencetonewvocabularyandsentence
structures.Extensionisalsoa
non-threateningmethodforinitiatingand
extendingconversations.
Describewhatyouaredoing.Inthisway,
youareprovidingthewordstodescribe
thestudent’sactions.Self-talkmaybe
usedwhenleadinganactivitylike
cooking.Forexample:“Iseethatthe
waterisboilingnow,soIam addingthe
pastatothewater.”Self-talkcanbuild
languageforallstudents,especiallylanguageforallstudents,especially
thosewithlimitedlanguage.
Describe,ornarrate,whatthestudentis
doingorseeing.Observethestudent’s
actionorfocusandmakecommentsthatdo
notrequirearesponse.Forexample,ifyou
observeastudentbuildingwithblocks,you
mightusethefollowingparalleltalk:“You
areputtingthesmallblueblockontopofthe
bigyellowblock.Yourbuildingisgettingbigyellowblock.Yourbuildingisgetting
taller.”Parallel-talkcanbuildlanguagefor
allstudents,especiallythosewithlimited
language.
...... ...
.........