Effective talk: Matching activity

published:27 Apr 2009

This activity is abou identifying the purpose for different types of talk. It relates to the September 2006 RfT summary (formerly known as Research of the Month, or RoM) on 'Effective talk in the primary classroom.'

Objective

This activity will help you to:

• understand the different purposes for which teacher talk is used
• be able to identify, stimulate and match different kinds of classroom talk to their purposes.

Timing

This activity will take approximately 45 minutes to complete:

• Introducing the session (3 minutes)
• Completing the matching activity (30 minutes)
• Debriefing the activity (10 minutes)

Resources

Each group will need:

• a set of cards containing examples of pupil teacher conversations (labelled 1-12 including two blank cards), and
• a set of cards containing the possible purposes of teacher talk (labelled A-L ).

What to do

Before the session:

• Download and print enough sets of the matching activity statement cards as you need for the group you are working with.
• Cut the cards up and use an elastic band or paper clip to keep them in sets.
• Decide on the composition of the groups.  Groups of between three and five seem to work best, including, if possible, people with a range of experience.

Introducing the session (3 minutes):

• Explain to participants that they are going to work together to think about how they make use of different types of talk in the classroom.
• They will then use this understanding to analyse some examples of teacher talk and identify their purposes.
• Finally they will discuss the ways in which they might improve their use of talk to support teaching and learning.

Completing the matching activity (30 minutes):

• Give each group a set of cards containing the examples of teacher pupil conversations, and a set of cards containing statements describing the different purposes of teacher talk.
• Ask them to familiarise themselves with the different purposes for teacher talk by reading through the cards.
• Ask them to choose one of the cards containing an example of teacher talk and work together to consider the teacher's contribution work to the conversation and match it to one of the purposes of teacher talk.  Encourage groups to discuss whether the example could be matched to more than one purpose.  (If participants think of any other purposes not included on the cards encourage them to write it on a blank card.)
• Ask each group to make a note of their matches by writing down the number from the example conversation card and the letters from the purpose cards.
• Then ask each group to repeat the activity with two or three other example conversations.  If participants finish quickly, or you have longer, you might like to encourage participants to continue to work through the rest of the examples, or ask them to have a go at the follow up activities.

Debriefing the activity (10 minutes):

• Ask two or three of the groups to share one example conversation they were looking at and explain which of the purposes they matched to the teacher's contribution. Ask the other groups to say whether they agree or disagree with that groups choices and explain which purposes would they would have chosen and why.

Activities to take learning further

You might like to encourage participants to extend their learning further between sessions by completing one of the following activities.

• Ask participants to notice any of the purpose cards they haven't matched to an example of talk. Encourage participants to use a record part of a lesson (using a video or tape recorder) and work with a colleague to identify their own examples which could be added to a card for use with this activity next time.
• Encourage participants to think about the way in which they use non-verbal communication, like hand gestures, to support communication with their students. They might like to ask a colleague to observe them teaching and identify the different ways in which they use non-verbal communication and to what purpose.
• Encourage participants to visit the RoM website to explore the full RfT 'Effective talk in the primary classroom' or one of the other RfTs from which the examples were taken.  Encourage them to look for examples of the different ways in which:
  • teachers decided to improve pupil's participation and understanding through the use of talk
  • how different patterns of talk affected teaching and learning.