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Spring 2009 At the end of March Wayne Marland retired, and although we all wish him well, it was an event which was greeted with much sadness by everyone who worked with him. Wayne has worked for Lancashire for 23 years, coming to the advisory service from Edge Hill, where he lectured in Education for 8 years, after working as a teacher in Manchester. He has always been a staunch advocate for race equality, bringing to the debate a profound knowledge and understanding of the issues that made him the Race Equality touchstone for teachers, advisers and partners alike, and the lynchpin for policy and practice in Lancashire. Always suspicious of fashions and trends in education, Wayne's grasp of the historical, social, psychological and educational contexts for racism and inequality has allowed him to develop and support strategies and initiatives that affect real change, often ahead of national policy. Anyone who has been lucky enough to hear him speak at conferences and courses will know that he can be inspirational, challenging assumptions and attitudes and cutting through to the core purpose of education for a just society. His knowledge, commitment, passion and integrity will be greatly missed as will his sense of humour and his mischievous tendency to subversion. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with him and we wish him a long and happy retirement. Guided Talk what is it and why should we do it? Children learning English as an additional language need opportunities to hear language modelled and to have opportunities to rehearse language across the different curriculum areas before they are asked to write. This is what Guided Talk is. It is a form of guided group work like guided reading or guided writing. In fact a guided talk session could be considered guided writing as the children are practising the language we will be asking them to write. It is essential to decide before hand what the language focus for the guided talk is to be, e.g. description, explanation, comparison, prediction and what kind of sentence structure and vocabulary will be modelled. We also need to think about how we will provide opportunities for the children to practice that language within the guided group session. Guided group work is a well-established feature of the National strategies and Guided Talk is beneficial in a number of ways: ♦ The small number of children allows teaching to be fine-tuned to particular needs and for the level of challenge to be pitched appropriately ♦ It forms part of the teaching sequence from reading to writing and offers opportunities for focused teaching and assessment ♦ Guided Talk should be positioned in the sequence in the same way, and with the same status, as guided writing ♦ It acts as a bridge between shared writing and independent writing as it provides an opportunity to revisit writing objectives after shared writing and before independent work The type of talk will be ‘presentational’ talk or oral rehearsal for writing Through the use of talk frames and focused input by teachers, it provides an opportunity to listen to and use the specific language required in a range of genres. Sessions for Guided Talk will address speaking and listening objectives, the main purpose being to support children to access literacy objectives across the curriculum. Provide an opportunity for children to use new subject-specific vocabulary from across the curriculum in meaningful contexts. More information can be found on Guided Talk in Excellence and Enjoyment: Learning and Teaching for Bilingual Children in the Primary Years. These materials come with a DVD of good practice for supporting bilingual children in the classroom. Unit 2 of the materials is full of practical strategies for advanced bilingual learners and there are two video clips in the Speaking and Listening section one linked to descriptive vocabulary and the other linked to Year 5 mathematics. Primary National Strategy Ref 0013-2006PCK-EN www.dfes.gov.uk Tel. 0845 60 222 60 Regional Conference for Support Staff Working with Children Learning English as an Additional Language Developing Language through Creativity This year's conference will be on 9th June 2009 at Dukinfield Town Hall. Support staff come from all over the region to attend this conference which provides practical workshops on all aspects of EAL. This is an excellent conference full of useful, practical ideas to support EAL. Steve Cook who was the Regional Adviser for EMA and of collaborative games fame will be the key note speaker. There will also be workshops across the key stages including Talking Tables (FS), Developing Language Through Science KS1 and 2, Socratic Talk KS 2 and 3, and much more. The conference will be advertised on the portal in the summer term-apply early to ensure a place For further information contact Alison McLay 07766 367508 Community Cohesion Through Theatre - a free event for primary and secondary teachers on 6 July from 1-4pm at the Burnley and Pendle Faith Centre. Facilitated by Global Link, this free half day event will explore the method of 'Forum Theatre' and how it can be used to promote community cohesion, as well as being applied to issues of diversity, equal- ity and citizenship. Forum Theatre is a dynamic and participatory form of theatre. It works by using drama and discussion to encourage participants to explore ways of tackling and challenging issues in their community. Places are limited. Booking is essential - please contact Sarah Hetherington, Schools Project Worker Tel: 01772 252299 Fax: 01772 888174 Email: [email protected] Web: www.lgec.org.uk / www.globalskills.lgec.org.uk / www.slide.lgec.org.uk Philosophical Enquiry and Global Citizenship for All This two day course will cover the theory and practice of philosophical enquiry (also known as Philosophy for children/ P4C) Philosophical enquiry is a student centred enquiry based methodology that develops critical thinking in a supportive and collaborative community. It can be used in any subject area but the course will focus on global citizenship, including issues of diversity, community cohesion and sustainability. Guidance will also be given on other curriculum areas. By the end of the course participants will be able to use and develop this methodology in their own practice. The course will address – differentiation, evaluation and assessment and the selection of suitable materials. The course entitles participants to apply for Level 1 P4C certificate from SAPERE (UK organisation promoting P4C) on completing and reporting on a session run independently. The course fee will include the cost of a course handbook. KS1&2 Thursday May 21 and Wednesday June 17 KS3 & 4 Friday May 22 and Thursday June 18 Both at the Gujarati Hindu Society, South Meadow Lane, Preston Please apply via the portal The Secondary EAL Programme Case Study 1 Using Socratic talk to develop an academic register Secondary EAL Programme lead English teacher, Jen Wright from Moor Park Business and En- terprise School in Preston describes how she used the Socratic method to improve the quality of talk and writing in a Year 8 class: I was introduced to Socratic talk at the network meeting for the Secondary EAL Programme and liked the idea of structured pupil listening and feedback. I looked for opportunities to incorporate the strategy into the Year 8 scheme of learning. In consultation with the EMA coordinator, I planned a lesson around organising and present- ing whole texts effectively (AF3). The outcome of the lesson was for the pupils to produce a coherent speech debat- ing the effect of two different texts. As a starter activity, I posed the question: ‘how do we structure a balanced discussion?’ The pupils worked in pairs, using talk time to identify some bullet points which they put onto the class whiteboard and read aloud to the class. We then exemplified how to structure a speech in writing with the assistance of a PowerPoint presentation (using a text skeleton). The next step was to identify the FLAP (Format Language Audience Purpose) of the speech that we were going to be writing later in the lesson. We activated prior knowledge by asking, ‘What are the first things we need to think about before we start planning a speech/piece of writing?’ They had talk time and feedback. This reinforced their understanding of the set task. I then introduced the pupils to the notion of Socratic talk, using a picture of Socrates as a key visual and a number of statements both by and about him. In this way, the pupils were able to understand the educational reasoning be- hind the activity we were about to undertake. We then shared a class reading of a poem on bullying, followed by a Socratic debate on the effectiveness of the text. While the debate was underway, the rest of the class – in the role of peer reviewers – were provided with a particu- lar target (for example, use of connectives) to listen for and comment on. Once the debate had concluded, the peer reviewers had to provide their feedback using the speaking prompts. Next, we watched a short film of the poem in performance. The same learners debated the effectiveness of the film and the rest of the class assessed their talk using peer-reviewed prompts. Then, we read an example of a teacher-modelled speech and discussed the success criteria and how effectively the text had addressed these. I then organised the pupils into ability groups of four, ensuring that there were enough higher-level achievers in each group to provide peer support. The pupils had to work in pairs for about twenty minutes, within their group of four, producing the opening and closing and the middle two paragraphs of the speech to guarantee the cohesion between paragraphs.

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