Structuring Talk
Regional Support Network Meetings
Autumn 2013
1 of x
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Connectivity
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This session focuses specifically on Speaking and Listening but it contains
many concepts and ideas which connect with the other areas of literacy,
namely reading and writing
•
At earliest infancy speaking and listening come before reading and writing,
and in most children S and L are a necessary precursor to R and W
•
This session looks at how important it is to learn about ways in which
formal/performed talk can be structured
•
Students who understand structure in talk, should then be better able to
detect structural mechanisms in texts that they read, and produce better
structures in their own writing
2 of x
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Form/Structure/Language
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These terms are notoriously ambiguous especially in their collocation
•
Form here is the largest ‘unit’ and describes the overall type of spoken
event, its generic features etc
•
Structure here is the organisation and cohesion of the event, its internal
workings
•
Language here refers to its details, such as speech ‘syntax’ as well as
vocabulary
3 of x
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Form
•
All talk is performance to some extent whether the final category be
Presenting, Discussing, Role Playing
•
In the classroom performance of Talk students need to know exactly what
form it is they are meant to be performing and/or simulating, and how such
forms ‘work’
•
Performing to the class as a class is one type of audience, but there are
many other types which can be simulated in order to help students.
4 of x
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Form
•
It is not just Role-Playing which has simulation
•
Individual presentations can have more sense of purpose and audience by
having a form that is inventive
•
Group work too can be within a narrative framework
5 of x
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Structure
•
Of our three terms ( FSL) it is structure which tends to be undertaught…
•
Yet it is structure which binds a text and gives it its impact
•
Note the word text here – whether the student is talking or writing, many of
the same structural ideas apply.
6 of x
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Some Structural Options
•
The following slides suggest some areas of textual structure which are
worth considering.
•
Bear in mind too, though, that no amount of structural subtlety can work if
the basic content and ideas lack substance
7 of x
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Chronology
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The management of narrative and time
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How are you going to sequence ideas in the story you tell in terms of time?
•
What can be achieved by foregrounding and backgrounding certain ideas
and events?
8 of x
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Contrast
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This is the interplay of different ideas (or points of view)
•
Do you set up the opposition from the start or do you give your text an
element of surprise by holding it back?
•
Do you leave the contrast (conflict) hanging or do you resolve it?
9 of x
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Telling and Showing
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Do you headline your key point at the start, or do you lead up to it
gradually?
•
If starting with the key point in an abstract way, how do you then support it
with detail?
•
Is it possible just to show and leave your audience to ‘tell’ themselves?
10 of x
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Obvious or Oblique?
•
Think of all those adverts whose meaning and messages are not obvious
from the start
•
Do you come at your topic obliquely, anecdotally, or do you go directly to
it?
11 of x
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Some Structural Building Blocks
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Repetition
•
Enumeration
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Accumulation
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Allusion
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Metaphor
•
Analogy
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Audience address
•
etc
12 of x
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Josie and Tashinga
•
Look at clip 6 from Rochdale 2014
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How is the form dramatically established here?
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How do the two students establish a sense of contrast in their roles
together?
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In what ways does the role play go through a series of stages ( or
structure)?
•
In what sense do they reach a conclusion?
13 of x
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Peter
•
Look at the clip of Peter in Rochdale DVD 2013.
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Role Playing. In this activity Peter performs a slot in the TV shorts series ‘If
I ruled the world’
•
How is Peter helped by being given this form?
•
What do you notice about the way he structures his talk?
14 of x
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