Oracy at work : training elementary students in listening and speaking skills to promote social responsibility.
Date
1993
Authors
Clode, Elizabeth Anne
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Abstract
This study examined the effects of a researcher developed unit. It was a six week, 12 lesson unit which taught speaking and listening skills (oracy). A brief training program was provided to an experienced classroom teacher to deliver the lessons to all students during regular class time. The lessons were designed to promote socially responsible behavior through a mixed methodology of directed and discovery learning, role playing, discussions, games, peer feedback, metacognition, and metapragmatics. Two intact classes of grades five and six were used in the repeated measures design which conducted assessment at pre-, mid-, and posttest. Twenty-one students were in the treatment group while, 20 students were in the control group. The functional pragmatic listening and speaking skills of the students were evaluated by the teachers using an abridged form of C. S. Simon ' s (1984) instrument for evaluating communicative competence. The students self -evaluated their listening and speaking skills. The researcher developed a SO-question scale for the students to complete. Two independent observers viewed videotapes of a variety of classroom interactions. The frequency of positive and negative listening and speaking behaviors were counted on 612 observational segments for each group. As predicted, the students in the treatment group significantly improved their functional pragmatic language skills as assessed by the classroom teachers. Differences in students' self-report scores approached significance in the expected direction in favour of the treatment group. Significant increases in positive social language, as well as significant decreases in negative behavior were found.