Tackling Talk
Welcome to the Tackling Talk Action Research Project
In this project you will have the opportunity to develop your skills in recognising and developing the communicative competence
of your students. Our communicative competence enables us to use oral language skilfully to interact in a wide range of
situations and with a range of different audiences.
This project has four broad aims:
- To investigate students’ use of oral language,
- To determine students’ oral language needs,
- To examine the Curriculum Framework to identify gaps between current proficiency and needs, and
- To design teaching and learning strategies and materials to address students’ needs.
The research will involve four stages:
Stage One: Investigating an aspect of oral language use in the community.
In this stage, participants will choose an aspect of oral language to investigate. They will select an aspect of “talk” that students will need to use outside school and/or in their future.
This stage will be completed before the first PD day.
Stage Two: Investigating students' current oral language skills.
This stage begins with the first PD day. Participants will review the findings of Stage 1 and set up the class-based element of the research, namely to identify and record the communicative skills of their students.
Stage Three: Supporting students' oral language development.
This stage begins with the second PD day. Participants will compare the findings of Stage 1 (the students' needs) with those of Stage 2 (the students' current abilities) and seek ways to measure the oral competency of their students with the outcomes in the Curriculum Framework. Strategies and materials to support the students’ development will be identified and where there are none available, prototypes will be developed. In addition, methods of assessment/evaluation will be explored.
Stage Four: Strategy Implementation.
In this final cycle, one strategy or type of material, and its related assessment procedure (as identified in Stage 3) will be trialed. Finally, participants’ research outcomes will be collated for all teachers to access.