The Connections between Oral and Written Language

1. The Connections between Oral and Written Language July 16, 2012 ECI 857

2. Review some basic theories of language “in use” at school: Barnes, Britton, Halliday, Delpit & Gee • Develop some meta-knowledge that will be useful for: • understanding our own assumptions, as well as the assumptions of others, about oral language and writing • establishing the importance of oral language in the writing process Purposes for today:

3. Halliday: “Speaking is More Than Just Talk” Five communication functions: Expressive (express or respond to feelings and attitudes) Ritualistic or formulaic (culturally determined, responsive to patterns of social interaction) Imaginative (storytelling, dramatizing, speculating, theorizing) Informative (stating, questioning, explaining) Persuasive (convincing, arguing, justifying, rejecting)

4. James Britton, Language and Learning Expressive (includes exploratory language) Transactional (language of getting things done) Poetic (language as object of contemplation) Based on longitudinal study in Britain, 1960s; involved 20, 000 children over 7 years; resulted in a widely accepted theory of language and learning. Oral language given importance – “learning to talk, talking to learn.” Theory in use: “Writing to learn”

5. Barnes (1992) Two Views of Speech & Writing Final-Draft Speech (Transmission model) Only fairly well thought-out ideas are presented to the teacher for approval (reward?). Finished, authoritative ideas are considered legitimate; teachers hold those ideas, mainly. Lecture, questioning. Exploratory Speech (Constructivist model) Classrooms should encourage (reward?) exploratory talk Students, and the teacher, may explore ideas freely. Connected to the “growth model” of education (Barnes, Britton, Halliday)

6. Assumptions about language and learning • Through talk and writing, we organize our thoughts (organization takes place at the point of utterance) • Through talk and writing we test our ideas against the ideas of others. • Through talk and writing we explore what we think and feel. • Through talk and writing we organize our activities. • Through talk and writing we speculate about what will happen in the future. • Through talk and writing we apply old information to new information. • Through talk and writing we reflect upon our experiences and their significance. • Through talk and writing we convey our ideas and our feelings to others.

7. What observations can we make about talk in classrooms? “The most obvious characteristic of classroom talk is that there is so much of it.” (A.D. Furlong & V.J. Edwards, p. 10)

8. What is the place of oral language in writing? • Mainly, oral language in school is used to: • 1. Deliver information verbally about and through texts. • 2. For demonstrating mastery of content or of forms of language. • 3. For control. The most common form of oral language use is IRF (Initiate, Response, Feedback). • 4. Generally, research has revealed that students are not asked frequently to use language for functions that require imaginative or speculative thinking, even to the extent of exploring and expressing feeling and emotion.

9. Oral Language Principles Not all students share the same level of competency in oral language. The acquisition of oral language is developmental. Students need varied and purposeful experiences in oral communication, with varied contexts and levels of familiarity. Oral language ‘skills’ should be integrated into other language arts. Speaking is not totally oral, so students need to learn about body language, eye contact, gesture and so on.Listening is a critical skill.

10. Talk and Gender Equity Research into classroom discourse and gender differences suggests that male students are the more frequent respondents – as well as the object of more frequent teacher response, both positive and negative. All students need to hear teachers attribute academic success to effort and ability, not to docile behaviour (female) and verbal dominance (male). We tend to teach as we have been taught; therefore, we need to be more conscious of how we respond to and acknowledge male and female students. Otherwise, we risk continuing patterns of inequity.

11. Talk and Cultural Difference“There is a sense in which, in our culture, teaching is talking” (Stubbs, p.12) Differences between students’ home language and the school language can be a critical factor in student achievement. “Ways of talking that seem so natural to one group are experienced as culturally strange to another” (Cazden, p. 67) School language is, in some ways, strange to all students; however, it is especially strange to those outside the mainstream culture.

12. Cultural Difference in Classrooms Lisa Delpit, “All students deserve the right both to develop the linguistic skills they bring to the classroom and to add others to their repertoire.” (2006, p. 264). Linguistic skills include not only syntax and grammar but also discourse style and language use. How we ask questions, give directions, listen, and interpret are culturally bound.

13. Delpit, L. (1988). The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People's Children. • Five aspects of power: • Issues of power are enacted in classrooms. • There are codes or rules for participating in power; there is a “culture of power." • The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power. • If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier. • Those with power are frequently least aware of – or least willing to acknowledge – its existence. Those with less power are most often most aware of its existence.

14. James Gee (1987): Discourses and Literacy Large “D” Discourse: a socially accepted association among ways of using language, of thinking, and of acting that can be used to identify oneself as a member of socially meaningful group or “social network.” Think of discourse as an identity kit which comes complete with the appropriate costume and instructions on how to act and talk so as to talk on a particular role that others will recognize.

15. How do you acquire control over Discourses? Acquisition a process of acquiring something unconscious by exposure to models and a process of trial and error, without a process of formal teaching. Natural settings, meaningful, functional; how we acquire our first language. Learning a process that involves conscious knowledge gained through teaching, not necessarily from a teacher. Teaching involves explanation, analysis; involves some degree of meta-knowledge about the subject.

16. What Discourses are visible in this picture? Saskatchewan kindergarten, 2008

17. References Britton, J. (1970). Language and Learning: The importance of speech in children’s development. London: Penguin. Cazden, C. B. (1988). Classroom discourse. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York: The New Press. Gee, J. (1987). What is Literacy? Teaching and Learning , 2 (3-11). Maclure, M., Phillips, T. & Wilkinson, A. (1988). Oracy matters: The development of talking and listening in education. London: Open University Press. Sterzuk, A. (2008). Whose language counts? Indigenous English in Saskatchewan Schools. McGill Journal of Education.