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THE BENEFITS OF ORAL LANGUAGE

Yvonne Boeskool

CAS 214
Dr. Kuyvenhoven
May 13, 2017
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In my study of communication arts in the classroom, Ive come across much information
and had many experiences that have made it evident to me that oral language used in a
classroom setting has immeasurable benefits on student learning, communication, attitude, and
the classroom as a whole. Throughout my conquest to find out more, Ive formed a pretty
strong opinion of the importance of oral communication to the developing mind as well as
discovered a new appreciation for it and toolbox to carry it out in my future classroom. The list
of benefits of oral language is endless, but I will attempt to name and explain the most influential
ones throughout this paper. It is also important that I compare the benefits of oral language to
the more typical mode of learning in the classroom print or technological literacy activity.
Students come into the classroom environment having extremely varied experience in
talking and communicating. Our class textbook, Content-Area Conversations, outlines
differences among students such as linguistic gaps, proficiency in the home language,
generation, number of languages spoken, motivation to learn English, experience with poverty,
and individual personality. It also talks about the different levels of English language learners.
At the starting level, students have little to no understanding of English. At most, they are able
to respond to simple commands or questions nonverbally. At the emerging level, students are
introduced to the academic language appropriate for their age. They are able to communicate
their needs and wants using familiar words and phrases. At the developing phase, students are
constantly building their vocabulary. They can read, write, and verbally convey more complex
ideas. At the expanding level, students language skills are sufficient for most communicative
tasks. At the bridging level, students perform well in speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
Throughout all of these levels, talking plays a huge role in growing and learning. Talking isnt
just important in one developmental stage it is vital to each and every one (Content-Area
Conversations, pages 11-15).
It is obvious that practicing oral language further develops the vocabulary range and
sentence building skills in students. This is material that often must be introduced in print as it is
important for students to learn to read and write effectively, but often overlooked is the
importance of exercising these grammatical and vocabulary patterns orally. Similarly, teachers
are known to actively practice oral language, but rarely give students the chance to practice it
on their own. In Content-Area Conversations, the writers present a typical interaction of a
teacher and a class in which the teacher is using what they refer to as academic discourse to
teach students material using a question and answer method. In this scenario, only one student
talks at a time while the others are quiet, and because of this, we see that in counting total
words used, the teacher is doing by far most of the talking (Content-Area Conversations, page
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6-7). Though this might be necessary in some instances, most of the time it is possible for the
teacher to find ways for the students to learn material by talking through it themselves. Thus,
the teacher would simply be a guide for academic discourse. Later in this paper, I will examine
exactly how I plan to do this as a future teacher, but for now lets look at why this is important.
Why should the students be talking more than the teacher anyway? Why is the development of
academic language more effective when it is practiced explicitly in student-to-student
interactions? The answer lies here. Students need to exercise oral language in order to expand
their vocabulary and ability to string words together to communicate correctly and effectively.
Student centered classroom talk, or academic discourse, is most often used only as a
means of checking for comprehension rather than the development of ideas, material, and
vocabulary. Word choice is one of the most vital elements of communication, but lets clarify
what we mean by this. Academic discourse and vocabulary is not just referring to each
individual word spoken by a student. I found this quote in the text: Perhaps the most common
[misconception about vocabulary] is the idea that vocabulary is bound to the word level, when in
fact vocabulary necessarily exists within the larger contest of the phrase and sentence.
Therefore, knowledge of a word cannot be examined without considering how it is used in a
larger context (Content-Area Conversations, page 28). Although reading and writing practice
expands vocabulary as well, conversation is really the only way to practice sentence fluency.
Interactive communication enforces good sentence structure habits in a way that reading and
writing cannot because conversation is responsive.
The ability to not only be responsive, but respond appropriately is the essence of
effective communication. Using oral language in the classroom leads to great gains in
communication skills that students will draw upon for their entire lives no matter what career
path they choose or where their lives take them. Before my senior year of high school, I had
never been in an interview-like situation. Suddenly I was thrown into job/internship interviews,
scholarship interviews, and the like. Although I like to think Ive always been a pretty good
communicator, I was a bit rusty when it came to answering direct questions about myself, my
goals, and my desire to get the job/scholarship. It was especially difficult to use vernacular that
was appropriate for such an environment when most of the communicating I had done prior was
with friends or family. This is why we need to implement activities in the classroom where
students learn and practice different communication skills for different scenarios. These
different purposes of language are called language functions. There are seven language
functions recognized in our class text. The first is instrumental which is used to express needs.
The next is regulatory, used to tell others what to do. There is also interactional, to form
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relationships with others, and personal, to express opinions and feelings and to assert identity.
Imaginative language is used to relate stories, jokes, and humor. Heuristic is used to solve
problems, and representational is to share facts and information (Content-Area Conversations,
24-25). It is important that oral language practice in schools hits on all seven of these language
functions because they are all commonly used in life. Ultimately, oral language is practical in
the real world to achieve ones goals as well as to develop healthy relationships.
Developing healthy relationships and maintaining connections with other people through
conversation and oral interaction also builds confidence. I experienced this in this particular
class, in fact. During the first two classes, we participated in get-to-know-you icebreaker
activities in which we interacted with our classmates. Making conversation allowed me to get to
know and bond with people in my class I had things in common with (Class discussion, Jan. 31
and Feb. 2). Those conversations led my classmates and me to interact outside of class. A few
weeks into class, I passed one of my classmates elsewhere on campus and she said Hi,
Yvonne. I like your outfit! and although I couldnt remember her name at the time, I figured it
out soon after and weve had a few nice interactions since then! This shows that guiding
students to interact using oral language in class causes them to make connections with people
outside of class. This, in turn, builds confidence in an individual unlike reading and writing can
do. I believe confidence is a vital characteristic especially in an age where self-destructive and
hateful behavior is so common and often even promoted in the media.
Aside from expanded vocabulary, communication skills, and qualities that stem from
those, oral language practice in the classroom also helps develop listening skills. While reading
and writing develops comprehension, it uses only visual and linguistic processing. It is widely
known that there are many different types of learning styles. For example, Im a visual learner,
so I learn best from seeing different images, charts, graphs, etc. I can also remember what I
read by picturing it at its specific spot on the page. My weakest learning style is auditory
learning. I find it very hard to concentrate on just listening when there are no visuals or nothing
for me to do with the information while Im receiving it like a kinesthetic learner. I didnt realize
how severe my struggle in auditory learning was until I started this class. I found it very difficult
to understand and retain stories and instructions told only by mouth. But as the class went on,
my auditory skills got better. By the end of class, I was able to follow along with stories told and
such. My auditory comprehension rate rose greatly from just a few months of twice weekly
practice. Similarly, if we expose students to more talking and listening in class, they will better
develop their skills to listen and retain auditory information. Its an even better idea to start this
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at a young age since it is a well-known fact that individuals learn a skill better when they start
young, like learning to play piano, or speak a foreign language for example.
Lastly, after discussing all the mechanical brain and linguistic benefits to oral language,
another huge benefit is the creativity aspect. Oral languages provides a wide range of activities
that allow students to think outside the box, to be creative with language, and to express
creativity with other elements that go along with the activities. In our class, we explored a few of
these, such as puppetry. Readers theatre is always a fun one as well. Although students are
reading, they are playing with language and practicing fluency while exploring voice inflection,
accents, and more. When you turn it into a play without reading, all of these benefits are
amplified. Students face the audience and practice eye contact, body language, and stage
confidence that effects their oral performance (Class discussion, February 21). Along with
these oral language activities comes other creative outlets such as set design, script writing,
and more (Kevin Kammeraad presentation, February 23). These activities also build
communicative teamwork skills between the members of each student group.
In our class text, I discovered the four different categories of purposeful student talk in a
strictly academic setting. The first is teacher modeling, a method where it is the teachers role
to ask questions, activate prior knowledge, and guide students to reflect with him or her. As a
future teacher, I picture myself using this method to talk through a math problem. It could be
one that introduces a new concept to students in which case it would be me introducing the new
material and drawing upon students prior knowledge to prompt them to apply what they already
know to a more complex concept. It could also be talking through a review problem in which my
talking bits would just be prompts for the students to conceptualize the problem as they further
develop their ability to practice the concept. The second category, guided instruction, is less
teacher led, and more just that guided. The teachers role is to simply question students,
clarify information, give feedback and reflect. The teacher meets with a group of students who
are struggling to find the surface area of a box. Lets say Im teaching a geometry lesson. In
guided practice, I ask questions and give the students prompts to find the area of each side and
then prompt them to find how to put them together for the whole box. This way, they are
exploring the material under my continual instruction. The third category, collaborative tasks, is
where students work together under the leadership of the teacher in groups where questioning,
clarifying, discussing, and reflecting is done between the students with the help of the teacher.
For example, in a science lesson students would get in groups to discuss their predictions about
the transfer of energy. Each group would then create an energy chain diagram for given
situations. And lastly, the independent task category is where students are ultimately learning
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on their own through self-talk, feedback, and reporting (Content-Area Conversations, pages 15-
18). This could be a science project in which students complete an experiment almost entirely
on their own, or it could be something more collaborative between students like evaluating each
others writing and giving feedback.
I also examined chapters on preparing the classroom for purposeful talk. I found lots of
information on making clear the expectations of talk activities to students. Establishing a clear
purpose beforehand will guide the teaching as well as the learning that happens in the
classroom. The text suggested posting and talking about three objectives for each lesson.
First, the content objective includes criteria needed to complete the task successfully. Second,
the language objective introduces and practices the academic language needed for completing
the task. And last, the social objective defines the nature of expected interactions between
students and between the student and teacher. All three, including the language objective can
and should be applied to each subject area. Language arts language objectives can be
predictable like using sensory detail or transition words. An example of a language objective in
math is using Ifthen phrases to describe and algebraic equation. A science language
objective could be using sequencing vocabulary to describe the life cycle of an animal and a
social studies language objective could be using academic vocabulary to explain an event in
history (Content-Area Conversations, pages 45-47).
Effectively managing classroom talk is vital to harnessing oral languages benefits in the
classroom. The class text suggests using sentence starter posters to clarify between different
types of classroom talk such as to instruct, to inquire, to describe, etc. (Content-Area
Conversations, 95-96). Student grouping is also an important aspect in managing academic
discourse. Research shows that grouping students heterogeneously, or in diverse groups, is
more effective than homogeneous, or similar groups, although methods can vary in some
instances and for some purposes. It is also important to constantly be switching up student
group rather than leaving them in the same teams all year. This way they form and build upon
relationships with all classmates and there is a higher level of harmony throughout the whole
classroom. The book considers different variables to consider when grouping such as language
proficiency, primary language, skills development, interests, work habits, prior knowledge, task
or activity, and social patterns.
Noise management is also an important aspect to keep in mind when conducting
classroom talk activities. Many students will find it hard to concentrate on the task at hand if the
noise level in the classroom is too high. There are many different jingles and chants to use to
gain students attention and quiet down the classroom when needed. Having a poster of
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different noise levels that students are familiar with prior can also be useful. Ive seen an
example of this in my Aunts classroom. She had a great poster with similar ideas as presented
in the text here, but different vocabulary. Hers were more catchy names for each noise level
(like Spy Talk for example) and that sparked my interest for my classroom. Time management
is also vital for a successful time of academic discourse. Using bells and countdown cues can
be effective methods as well as setting time parameters with students beforehand to let them
practice time management a little bit on their own (Content-Area Conversations, page 103-106).
Overall, oral language is a very beneficial tool to use in the classroom. It effects
vocabulary growth, communication skills, social confidence, listening skills, and creativity.
There are also many ways to implement these in the classroom and I hope this paper has
effectively conveyed why it is so important to strive for this as a teacher. I plan to work hard to
implement oral language in my future classroom. I loved lots of the activities we did in class
such as readers theatre and puppetry as well as the activities and management methods I read
about in the text. Now that I know the benefits of oral activity, I have a passion for using it to
guide my students to be more knowledgeable and more well-rounded learners.