Giving a short talk in the ESL beginners’ classroomÂ
Holding a speech is a central topic in English teaching. It doesn’t really matter which age group we talk about, this topic comes up at different levels in a circular curriculum.
Referring to David Crabtree’s 10 top tips to inclusion we structured a topic plan which should enable all learners especially in year 6 to develop a short talk about any topic which they are interested in or which the actual themes from the book elicit in class.
It was our main intention to give the learners a scaffold into their hands which is well structured, which can’t get into a mess and which they can use steadily to support them in their creative work.
We offer support fans at four different levels (click on these links to see the front and back of an example support fan):
Level 1: A very simple fan [1] based on icons visualising the underlying intention which should be easily understood after an auditive introduction in class (see attachment 2 [2] for levels 1 and 2).
Level 2: On the back side of this fan the learners will find very basic sentence structures.
Level 3: A fan with more complex language in German on the front side (see attachment 3Â [3] for levels 3 and 4).
Level 4: The same fan in English on the back side.
Learners using any of these fans can choose by themselves which support they need.
If the teacher feels that more space for impulses is neccessary further blank elements for the learners may be added so that they may get some additional support for themselves.
Thus the learners have flexible learning options to achieve their target task. With the support provided each of them should be able to give a short talk in front of their classmates. The outcomes should be easily understood by all as they are at different language levels. It’s not the most elaborate level of their speech that counts but the learner’s voice based on their own ideas and thus the creativity he/she puts into choosing their topic and the performance of their talk. All the different contributions of each of our different learners are welcome and an appreciated enrichment for the class community.
Susanne Mücke-Spode
[1] For support fans see Inga Obst & Roswitha Henseler: „Mit dem conversation fan zum conversation fan – Get chatting!“. In: Zschr. „Englisch 5-10“, Heft 23/2013, pp. 18-21.
[2] Stick the two pages together, cut the pieces out horizontally and stick them together with a butterfly letter-clip.
[3] These fans must be cut out horizontally, folded vertically and stuck together with a butterfly letter-clip.