Project 15 - Tackling Talk in Community Services
What language functions help us to communicate successfully with community service providers?
You will need to review the information on functions of language.
You will also need to consider language for learning and social interaction. Interactions with service agencies are successful because the conversants follow a set of rules for facilitating communication. These are described in the section on looking at language pragmatically.
Research Questions:
- What language functions are needed when dealing with community services (e.g., the police, doctors, dentists, etc)?
- Do your students currently have control of these functions?
- What additional functions do your students still need to be able to communicate successfully in this type of speech environment?
Method:
- List the language functions that you have observed in the environment you have studied.
- Note in your DWP your students' current abilities with these language functions.
- Note how you would normally record your assessment of these functions, e.g., would you:
- note them as anecdotes,
- record them in a portfolio,
- conduct a formal test,
- note them in your DWP, or
- not normally assess or record them.