Main Points

- Introduction
- the effect of oral language on literacy development and academic learning.
- Descriptions of the best practices of using a dialogic teaching approach to
build ELLs’ oral language skills and enhance their academic learning.
Introduction to Dialogic Teaching Approach
a dialogic teaching approach to promote oral language use that support learning in
all content area subjects such as Social Studies, Science, Language Arts, and Math in
primary schools. Dialogic teaching is a technique teachers use to help students
effectively meet learning goals or accomplish tasks through dialogue. Dialogic teaching
utilizes the power of talk to stimulate and extend pupils’ thinking and advance their
learning and understanding.”
- A teacher initiates talk such as the question-answer and listens-tell routines, or
the casual conversation. Children don’t just provide brief answers to ‘test’ or
‘recall’ questions, instead, they are guided (by teachers) to narrate, explain,
analyses, speculate, imagine, explore, evaluate, discuss, argue, justify, and
they ask questions of their own.
Learners address their comments, questions, and statements directly to each other.”
Several researchers support this use of exploratory talk occurring in the classroom
which they refer to as a dialogic teaching approach.
- Teachers should avoid applying stereotypes to ELLs.
- Teachers have limited time to address oral language issues as they pay more
attention to content. He/she should, instead, work on the language aspects of
ELL learners. Sometimes teachers skirt (around) language issues due to their
own level of discomfort with language instruction.
- Evidence exists linking oral language to the word recognition aspects of reading
and/or the comprehension aspects of the reading model.
- It is important to consider that “not only are oral language skills linked to the code-related
skills that help word reading to develop, but they also provide a foundation for the
development of the more-advanced language skills needed for comprehension”.
Effect of Oral Language on Literacy Development and Academic Learning
Acquisition of oral language is indeed the foundation for literacy development and academic
learning.
- Children who develop strong oral language skills during the preschool years develop a
strong foundation vital for their later achievements in reading.
- Teachers need to be purposeful, enthusiastic, and engaging in their daily interactions and
learning experiences with the children to build a strong foundation in oral language and
other emergent literacy skills.
- Teachers should reflect on students’ current knowledge and ability and take it into
consideration as they plan lessons.
- Teachers are focused when they set clear learning goals for the children.
- Oral expression, particularly vocabulary knowledge and an understanding of sentence
structure is basic to the development of reading comprehension skill.
- Vocabulary knowledge helps children decode words or map spoken sounds to words in
1
 print.
- If children read words that they already have in their receptive vocabulary, it will be
easier for them to sound out, read, and understand them.
- Oral language is essential for children to gain knowledge in all content areas.
- This knowledge is critical for thinking and learning about the world in which they live.
To promote oral language development in content areas:
Strategy 1: Picture Description
- This strategy allows students to talk without concern for syntax, grammar,
pronunciation and other mechanics of writing.
- It engages students to interact in a meaningful way in a small group situation (non-
threatening environment to students) before putting SS on the spot in front of the
entire class.
There is a relationship between vocabulary and phonological awareness.
Children who know a word and use it orally in conversation will analyze the sounds contained
in that word more easily than those who do not know the word.
Thus, children who participate frequently in conversations experience a positive impact on
language development, particularly oral vocabulary.
Getting started:
The criteria for selection of words may include words that children are unlikely to learn on
their own or are less likely to be exposed to.
- The teacher identifies the key words.
- Make sure the pictures have clear and appropriate for the students.
- The teacher reviews the vocabulary words with the class to make sure they understand
the words prior to beginning the activity.
- Paste the pictures on index cards or flashcards.
- Also, teachers need to model the strategy
1. The teacher selects a card with a target picture and without showing the picture to
students; He describes the item or concept.
2. Students will have to predict the name of the object in the picture, based on teacher’s
clues.
- It is a type of a fruit.
- It is mostly red in color, but sometimes you can find green ones too.
- It is round and delicious.
- It is white inside.

Strategy 2: Talk a Mile a Minute

- This strategy encourages students to tell aloud a list of words that are related to the
category.
For instance, “things associated with ocean,” or “things associated with geometry”
- The objective is to say as many of the related terms to the theme within a minute.
- It is effective method for reviewing concept words in the class.
1- Students can be paired and
2- each one can be given an index card in an envelope with a different category word
written on the top of the card and a few related words.

2
 3- The words in the list are ‘taboo’ words that the player giving the clues cannot say.
4- Player A with the index card will read out the category (target word) and player B has
to guess all the words related to the category in the list
5- As soon as player B says any of the word from the list, player A will cross off the
correctly identified word.
6- Player A can provide oral clues for the words in the list. For instance, for the list word
‘triangle’, player A can say, “it has three lines”.
Topography
- Mountains
- Rivers
- Latitude
- Longitude
- Elevation
After the activity, teachers can lead a debriefing session by asking which terms were easier to
predict and which ones were difficult.
This provides a quick form of oral assessment about concept learning and review for lesson.
Strategy 3: Puppet Role Play
1- During the role play activity, students use puppets representing the people they are
learning about.
2- “hiding” behind a puppet make SS who are resistant to speaking up more confident.
3- “holding and manipulating a puppet with their hands”, children naturally imagine the
person being represented and act out scenes spontaneously.
4- Children often prefer talking to, and through, puppets, and can feel more confident in
their conversation ability when using such a tool.
5- The puppets supply immediate visual support for meaning, and provide opportunities for
language use in natural contexts as well as practice opportunities for meaningful oral
language use.
6- They allow children to orally express what they know using their imagination and
creativity.
For example, the teacher might ask, “Hi Police officer, what do you do to help people? Why
do you like your work? Children will feel free to describe the role of community helpers as
they pretend to be one.
During the role play, SS learn how English is used in real-life situations through interacting
with people in meaningful dialogues, contexts, and actions.
Another example of role play,
include historic figures such as Christopher Columbus,
Teachers can either provide puppets for SS or SS make their own puppet using classroom art
supplies.
Each student present their puppet while explaining
- who the person is, where and when they lived, and what major contributions and roles
he or she played in history.
SS imagine themselves as the historical person
Through role play using puppets in historical settings, the students are re-living that era in
history.

3
When children produce their own puppet, they feel a sense of pride and ownership in their
learning, and will continue to actively engage in role playing and speaking with the puppet
outside classroom.
The teacher should model this puppet role play strategy, preferably with a fluent English
speaking student,
To accommodate and include students who are less confident in speaking in front of the entire
class,
- the class can be broken up into pairs.
- During the paired-up role play, each student will take turns asking and responding to
specific questions the teacher has prepared.
- Teachers may need to scaffold and prepare questions to be used during the paired-up
role play. A few examples of questions that can be used to learn about well-known
historic figures are:
o What is your name? Where did you live? When did you live? What happened at
that time in your town? What did you do to help people? What was your belief?
Why did you believe in that?
- In this situation, one student plays the role of a reporter (interviewer) while the other
portrays the historical figure and responds to the questions.
After the interviewer-historic figure role play,
- SS can write out their questions and responses so that the teacher can evaluate the oral
language ability and accuracy of the content.
- During the pair role play activity, the teacher should monitor and even participate in role
plays where needed.

SS can make a puppet of a character from the story they are reading and act out scenes
involving that character before or after reading the story.

For some ELLs who experience difficulty in speaking impromptu, scripts for characters
appearing in the story can be created in advance.
The students can use their puppets to read the scripts. In addition, children can make a puppet
of themselves and engage in “dramatic role play around real-life issues, moral dilemmas, or
ethical issue from a school or real life”.

Language and Literacy Skills

Reading books together is a great way to develop children’s early reading skills.

Select books that have content that is interesting and age- appropriate.
Look for books that have illustrations that are engaging and appealing.

Two effective ways to promote language and literacy skills is through interactive shared book
reading and dialogic reading.
Interactive Shared Book Reading
Before reading the story, the teacher can point to the title or ask the children to make
a prediction on what they think will happen during the story.

4
During reading, the teacher makes comments and poses questions about the story.
After the reading, the teacher and children discuss the story and make meaningful connections.
The children are asked to reflect on how the story relates to their own world and experiences.
Dialogic Reading
Dialogic reading is similar to interactive reading using specific types of prompts to engage
the child in becoming the storyteller.
Adults become the child’s audience as they listen and ask questions about the story. Two
acronyms were developed in relationship to dialogic reading. They are PEER and CROWD.
PEER
P — Prompts: The adult uses prompts to encourage the child to discuss the book.
E — Evaluates: The adult evaluates the information given by the child.
E — Expands: The adult expands on the child’s response by elaborating on what the
child has said.
R — Repeats: The adult repeats the original prompt to determine what the child has
gained from the interaction.

For example, the adult says to the child, “What is in this picture?” (prompt). The child
says, “A kitty” (evaluates). “Yes, if is a fluffy black and white kitten” (expands). “What is
this?” (repeats prompt and points to picture). The child says, “A fluffy kitty.”
CROWD
There are a variety of prompts that can be used to promote discussion about a story.
The acronym CROWD can help you remember five types of prompts. The following examples
could be used with the book
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

C — Completion: The children complete a sentence or phrase. “And he was still —

__(hungry).”
R— Recall: The children are asked to recall some information from the story. “Can you
remember the first food the caterpillar ate?”

O — Open-ended: The children share information about pictures in the book. “Tell me about
what you see in this picture.”

W — Wh-questions: The children are asked questions that begin with “Wh,” such as what,
where, when, and why. “Why do you think the caterpillar felt better after eating a
green leaf?”

D — Distancing: The children make connections to their lives. “Have any of you ever had a
stomachache?”