Teaching Communication Skills at ALL Ages

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Teaching Communication Skills at ALL Ages

Communication skills seem to be those skills that are crucial to being successful in life and society, but are sometimes taken for granted. There are huge inequalities within communication, regarding who can communicate, who is proficient with communication, who communication benefits, and who communication disadvantages or becomes a barrier for. This potentially stems from the improper teaching of communication, lack of access or opportunities to develop communication skills, or lack of importance placed on learning communication skills. In Ontario, communication skills are very emphasized in the language arts curriculum, and it is crucial to, as teachers, put our best efforts into teaching the importance of, love of, and abilities in successfully learning communication skills. This needs to begin in kindergarten and continue well into middle school, secondary school, and post-secondary school. In this post I am going to explain three oral communication activities that are fit for three different age groups!

Read Alouds for the Primary Years

I would say this teaching strategy is likely useful for all ages, but I see it having the biggest impact at the primary level; most likely kindergarten to grade two. I found this resource on Blog Talk Radio, and it is called Enjoying Books With Young Children, hosted by Jennifer M. Hatfield. Jennifer discusses the importance of encouraging language development through the use of reading texts and resources. Having books read aloud to children increases cognitive skills through hearing basic sounds that form language and speech as well as develop listening skills. Additionally, scaffolding the activity to have children practice reading aloud themselves or to you, can develop speaking skills and strategies. This activity aligns with the curriculum expectation of learning to use speaking skills and strategies appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety or purposes. This is also seen with Jennifer’s suggestion to, while reading to children or having children read to you, pause periodically to have them ask questions, or ask them questions about the text; to predict plot points, to think creatively about themes, and to respond appropriately. This stresses engagement through active reading that translates to communication skills with productive conversation.

Literature Circles for the Junior Years

The article Grand Conversations in the Junior Classroom published by Capacity Building Series, stresses the importance of facilitating grand conversations. It is crucial these conversations consist of student-driven dialogues encouraging students to communicate their thoughts on the text. This improves comprehension, focuses on both internal and external dialogue, helps students discover big ideas, and teaches them to respond appropriately to others. The curriculum mentions in the overall expectations for oral communication the need to listen in order to understand and respond appropriately in a variety of situations for a variety of purposes. Simplified, I believe this refers to successfully participating in conversation. The article provides many examples of activities or venues to initiate these grand conversations.

The one example that stood out to me as appropriate to teach students in all grades, but what I feel would be beneficial in grades three-five (a time where students are just beginning to understand the characteristics or technicalities of grand conversations or discussions) is called “Literature Circles”. The activity requires splitting the students into small groups and having them discuss a common theme found in a text. Members brainstorm the ideas of the theme found in the text and then come to a consensus of the what the big idea related to the theme is; essentially the rich problem or umbrella question. This allows students to develop skills such as listening to and understanding others’ thoughts and opinions, and then responding appropriately in order to collaboratively decide on what they think the big idea of the theme is.

Expert Stay and Stray for the Intermediate Years

This final activity I feel would work great for all grades, and can be adjusted in difficulty according to classes’ or students’ level of learning, is called the “Expert Stay and Stray”. I believe that the increased level of difficulty regarding concepts and topics used in the Stay and Stray results in an increased development in listening and speaking skills for the students; thus beneficial for intermediate grades when there is opportunity for the level of difficulty to increase. This activity is found on the Pearson SIOP Model YouTube channel, and is called SIOP Activity: Expert Stay and Stray with Dr. JanaEchevarria. Students work in groups of three, and become an expert on a specific aspect of a topic. The example theme Dr. Jana uses is ‘pollution’ where each group becomes an expert on an aspect of pollution (e.g. air, water, land, etc.). The students compile a poster outlining the information on their topic. Then one student “Stays” to teach their peers about the topic, and the other two students “Stray” to be taught about the other aspects of pollution that their peers are experts on. The two “Stray” group members return to the “Stay” group member and teach them about the other aspects of pollution that they learned from the other experts.

Essentially this entire activity is built on trust and reliability. The students are relied upon to become experts on their aspect of the topic. The students who “Stay” are reliable to teach their peers the important information. The “Stray” students are reliable in collecting the knowledge to teach their third group member. All in all, this activity fosters trust between the students that everyone will perform effectively in their part. This also requires the students to practice their communication skills with communicating their expert information and also effectively listening to understand their peers’ expert information. This concept is found in the curriculum where it states students need numerous opportunities to listen and to talk about a range of subjects. 

Conclusion

It is crucial that teachers focus on students’ communication skill development. The above activities show that communication skills can be interwoven into all activities that are applicable to all subjects, such as the Stay and Stray being used in any subject. Reading texts and analyzing them and then communicating ideas and thoughts about them is another successful way to promote listening and speaking skills development, as shown with the Literature Circle or Read Alouds. It is easy to take communication skills for granted, but it should be even easier to teach them to students!