We’re finding more and more schools are mentioning listening as their “oracy pain point”. In response, here are a few listening games in which the skills of focused attention, turn taking and tracking of the speaker happen naturally rather than as a matter of policing.
I Went to the Jungle
Start in a whole group, stood in a circle or around the edge of the room, so everyone gets the idea. The first player (you) starts, “I went to the jungle and came back with,…,” then each player in turn remembers the previous list and adds to it. It helps if you set a pattern of miming as well. Have volunteers for this stage to avoid putting people on the spot.
Once you’ve got to e.g. “I went to the jungle and I came back with a gorilla, a lizard, a tropical disease, a toilet seat,…” split into two or four groups and carry, each group building their own list. As a general rule, anything you can do just as well in groups instead of as a whole class, do in groups – more “goes”, more engagement.
Encourage people to help each other out using mime. To finish off the game, bring pairs of groups together for a “memory-off” where all the players in a group chant through their list together. It’s very satisfying when your group remembers the whole list!
Bob’s Unlucky Day
If there’s a Bob in your class, choose another name! Same structure as above but this time, each person adds another misfortune to Bob’s day. Establish from the outset that you can’t kill Bob as he has to survive for more unlucky things to happen to him! As well as being fun, it can provide an interesting stimulus for the exploration of how humour works, since Bob’s misfortunes would be tragic in normal life but are comic in the context of the game. This game has an added cognitive layer that players will need to summarise misfortunes that were previously stated at length. Again, it’s collaborative so help each other out with mime, or for Ninja-level play, have misfortunes that rhyme!
Managing Energy During Talk
There’s a sweet spot in classroom talk between too little energy, with children feeling inhibited, self-conscious and disengaged and too much energy, with children talking over one another or being scatty and off-task.
When you want more energy, add any of these:
- Voices – smaller groups, more conversations
- Physicality – stand up, move about
- Sociability – choose your own partners/groups
…and of course, when you want less energy, have fewer groups, sit them down, revert to seating/talk partners plan.
With lively groups, being sat cross-legged in a North, South, East, West format works well. Or you might use a “traverse” format with pairs opposite one another, but seated across tables rather than standing.
Inclusion Through Flexibility
An autistic teacher last week shared the importance of a get-out from the expectation of facing a talk partner. While in general, face-to-face pairing helps engagement because it makes keeping up the conversation the easiest and most natural thing to do, for some autistic learners it’s tiring and uncomfortable. So, just as you would invite children with sensory issues to move with their partner away from the noisy babble of lots of paired conversation, make sure those who need it have an out from set-ups that could make them uncomfortable.
Helping schools since the start of term
We’ve began this school year’s bulletins a week later than usual as we’ve been so busy in schools – and are now in Adelaide as visiting fellows working with the South Australia Department for Education and UniSA to spread good oracy practice. More about this in a future bulletin!
Since the start of term, we’ve worked in:
25 schools…
…training over 600 teachers
… running sessions for dozens of classes.
… six day-long events for whole year groups.
…and working with over 3000 pupils altogether!
Before arriving in Australia, Jason was in Jersey again for another week of workshops, INSET and curriculum clinics with members of the Jersey Oracy Network.
As well as delivering P4C and oracy training at several schools across London, Tom was wearing his Hidden Leaders hat with events for Dulwich College, Caterham School, St. Dunstan’s College, Wycombe Abbey, Tunbridge Wells Boys Grammar, Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar, Mayfield School and The Cottesloe School.
If you’re interested to learn what these schools got up to, take a look at www.thephilosophyman.com/oracy-training for the oracy, and www.hiddenleaders.com for the teambuilding.