Can you tell me, why do you think it's important
to make sentences that make sense?
Why can't we just say them any way we like?
My name is Nicole Rodda.
I am a Grade 1 teacher at St Anthony's Primary School,
which is situated in Melton South, which is a low-socioeconomic area.
The school has around about 300 students
and a lot of those students represented at the school
come from different cultural backgrounds.
In today's professional learning team
I would like us to have a look at four children that I've identified
as having really low oral language scores,
and what I'd like to do is look through the data that I've got.
I've got a record of oral language,
a writing sample and a running record as well.
One of the members of the professional learning team
is Jen, who is the other Grade 1 teacher.
I'm hoping, out of the professional learning team,
that she will learn how to look at student data
and then, from that student data, create a plan for your teaching
to then go into the classroom,
with the student data being the focus
of where your planning should come from.
We could look at what are they actually doing well
with their oral language, what strengths do they have,
and then, from there, what are the main challenges
that they seem to be having consistently?
And then, from there, we might be able to identify
some goals and some strategies to implement into the classroom
with the PLT log.
If I give you a different child's data each to have a look at,
and then maybe if we can have a discussion
about what you're noticing,
and maybe if we start with
some strengths that you see that they have.
Many of the sentences, although incorrect,
they still made sense.
-Yes. -Mm-hm.
And they could follow most of the basic sentence structures
at the Level 1 area.
OK, yes, I have that on mine as well.
In Level 1, I'm getting the same sort of thing.
So they're still retaining meaning in their sentences.
They might substitute words like 'old' for 'new'.
Yes.
And then there other ones also that don't make sense,
like, "The blue flew to the top of the tree."
"I jumped into the ocean and I saw."
It starts with a person, 'I'.
And then the place that I jumped into, what was that?
-Isaac? -To the ocean.
Into the ocean - that is the place.
If you were to look through the other samples,
is that consistent through that?
So, in their writing or their running records?
Yes, I've got one here too.
This child has... The sentence is, "That's a good picture."
And she's actually left off the apostrophe 'S',
so it's, "That a good picture."
It seems like a common issue, is them not understanding
how it's supposed to sound in English
and needing that modelling and that structure
and that repetition of hearing it all the time.
I'm going to read the sentence
and I want you to say it back to me exactly as you hear it.
Can you watch my mouth, please?
"I jumped into the ocean and I saw."
ALL: "I jumped into the ocean and I saw."
From the challenges,
are we able to identify a goal for these children?
What would you say would be the main thing that they need to grasp
before they move forward?
The understanding of what a sentence is.
Improving their sentence structure.
OK, can we just have a look at these?
This breaks down the different levels of the ROLs,
and maybe if we look at that more basic level,
it can really tell us what the children aren't understanding
and we might be able to articulate that into a goal for the kids.
I think, in the professional learning team,
we were able to identify
exactly what the children are having difficulties with
in their oral language,
and then, from there, work together collegially
to develop a focus for them, a real goal for them,
and then strategies to implement into the classroom
to, hopefully, reach that goal.
And I think it was really good having Jen there
to hear all of these ideas
and, hopefully, she can implement
some of those things into her classroom
to eventually improve her teaching practice as well.