Sarah Welton - What impact does literature focussed oracy tasks delivered over two weeks have on the comprehension skills for Year 10 in comparison to Year 8? Within Cowes Enterprise College, and indeed across many schools, as students get older they begin to feel a greater sense of social anxiety and allow their personal issues to increasingly invade the classroom. This means that many students try to say as little as possible when directed to answer questions, but I noticed this the most in Year 10. With this in mind, I chose to measure the impact on specific oracy tasks which developed the Year 10s’ ability to speak aloud in comparison to Year 8s completing similar tasks over a two week period. I will be looking at how well the Year 10 students respond to the tasks and if their comprehension on Macbeth improves due to this; this will then be compared to Year 8s and their comprehension following similar tasks for Descriptive Writing and Animal Farm.
Intent: When researching last year, I found most resources and research for oracy was tailored more towards Primary than Secondary. Over the year, I have seen that Year 8 are generally more receptive towards oracy and listening/learning from one another; I wanted to spend time trying to address this issue with Year 10 and see whether these tasks could be adapted upwards to engage KS4. This particular Year 10 carry considerable personal issues with them which has caused many of them to become consumed by the complexities of their circumstances within the classroom – often not being respectful to others who may be speaking. In addition to this, the double COVID lockdown they have experienced appears to have made them more lethargic and less driven to succeed. The knock-on effect of this has impacted not only their written work, but also their want to engage with the discussions in the room. I decided to focus mostly on the students who speak the most within the classroom, but not necessarily about the topic offered to them. For the purpose of comparison, I have chosen similar students in Year 8 to focus on. The reason for this is to hone these students into having more productive conversations within the classroom with more guided tasks. This would then help the weaker students to hear and comprehend the text from their peers, and so hopefully more likely to retain the information required for their exams.
Research: Last year, I found various research which promoted oracy (as stated above, mostly with a Primary focus); in 2017, Antony Luby (in Combating Language Poverty: Improving oracy and dialogue in schools) offered an opinion that in thirty years, they had never experienced this ‘quality of conversation’ naturally. With this in mind, I needed to be aware of my questioning after the discussion tasks in order to try to raise the ‘quality’ of the feedback. There was little way in a class environment for me to offer this specific improvement to all students, so I adapted my tasks to have guidance for all, then challenging the responses from the few. One of Luby’s example tasks was to listen to audio stories. Whilst studying the literature texts this year, the students engaged the most when other students read characters aloud from the play. However, it was a challenge finding students willing to read the play aloud; I also tried audio books, but many disagreed with the narrator (though I’ve had success with previous year groups). For this group in particular, neither of these options seemed a good fit for engagement. Valuing every voice from Voice21 had several adaptable tasks for a secondary environment. One of the key sections I want to use is the discussion guidelines. This sets out really clear expectations which is exactly what the Year 10 group need to help them be more thoughtful towards the other students in the classroom.
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