Teachers Talk Teaching - Tony Nichols

My English program has two major focuses. One is a major integrated unit of work, which tends to be based on the Kath Murdoch model. Federation is a big issue this year so a lot of work came out of that, and we have also been looking at Discovering Democracy including using the new Australian Readers. We worked our way through those all through first term and a bit of second term. Second term’s major unit, which really captured the kids’ imagination, was on Antarctica. Although these are SOSE-based activities, they provide the basis for much of the reading and writing involved in the English program.

The second major focus of the program is a literature focus, working with a specific novel or author. In first term we looked at Remote Man and looked at the styles and structures within that text. I chose it because of its unique style and layout. In second term we got caught up in the whole notion of Lemony Snicket and the Series of Unfortunate Events. Working our way through that formed the structure of this part of the program for the whole term. Dani Colvin, who is one of our teacher aides, interviewed Lemony Snicket for The Mercury. So the children wrote some questions which she used in the interview. The children investigated the author and tried out some writing in a similar style.

I think the work we did on the Lemony Snicket books would be the thing that really inspired the kids. This year, out of everything we have done that was the one that just came out of left field. It wasn’t carefully planned and to start with, it just came at us and I took it on board. The kids just loved it, they were saying ‘Let’s be involved’. And then we got the chance to go to see Lemony Snicket and it inspired the kids to be involved. We had all these individuals who would not otherwise pick up books saying, ‘What’s it all about?’. They were reading it and getting involved, especially some of the boys, so that was one of the really successful activities.

Dani also takes reading groups of five kids to the library, to share one of the current novels. At the moment it has been the Lemony Snicket books. Dani doesn’t do the reading. They sit and read round in a group and therefore are practising their oral reading skills in a nice safe group. There is a bit of ability matching so that they’re all feeling very comfortable when they are reading to each other. That’s worked really well for the boys as well as the girls.

We try to have a real purpose for anything we do. If the kids see they are doing it for a specific purpose with a real audience, then it tends to be more meaningful. This term, for example, the children have been involved in Tournament of Minds so we have been doing a lot of script writing and looking at lots of different ways of presenting scripts. We have also been looking at current issues related to Antarctica. For example there was a recent article in The Mercury about the building of ice runways at Casey base and then Mawson and Davis. The children were writing arguments both for and against. We tend to use those contexts so kids can see there is a purpose to what they are doing. They then see that it fits into a bigger picture.

I try to use many different vehicles to get the children enthusiastic. In literature we used the visit of Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket). We also constantly have our library staff, Carol Reynolds and Dani Colvin, sending any age-appropriate new literature that comes to the school via our classroom.

We also aim for a real purpose for the presentation of all the English work. We tap into competitions, we might have kids creating videos or using PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a really good medium for them to explore their ideas and the kids love that one. Email has become huge since TigerMail has come on board, so the children are emailing each other, emailing senior staff, emailing other people outside the school. For example, some of the children emailed John Howard about Australia’s position on whaling. They did that at night on their home computer because they were so fired up, but they haven’t had a reply yet.

When looking for a worthwhile focus, we take any other opportunities that come along. We are really open to ideas. Two years ago when we were working on an Antarctic unit, we ended up emailing an expeditioner who was going down to all the bases, because I had her step-daughter in my class. We get these community links that pop up out of the blue. I make it public knowledge to the school community that I am doing a unit and we suddenly get all these people coming of the woodwork. This time we have got a child’s father who has been to Davis base several times. So we have had him to come and talk. That sort of community link helps bring the unit alive and the kids get more ownership of it, because they are more enthusiastic. We try to put everything we do out in the school community, which then means we get bombarded with opportunities. We get more opportunities than we can actually handle. The school community is great for that.

In third term this year, we are looking at doing a unit related to Marine Studies. We’re going to the Marine Studies Centre for two days, with one day on the boat Legana. The other big event for term three is that I will be taking the grade 6 group to Port Arthur for four days on a camp. So we will look at early colonization of Tasmania. We will look at the history of Port Arthur and of Tasmania. One of the activities that the kids really get a buzz out of, is creating a radio play. They write up a script and create a radio play with a cassette player and a microphone. They come up with characters’ voices. That’s where you get the children who would normally not be vocal when speaking to a crowd suddenly getting there showing their talents because they can do it happily with a microphone and just a friend. Then we play it back and they’re very proud that they have done it. It creates a good quality of work and they have a reason for research and all this information about characters, because they need this information to be able to produce the character on the radio. So using different people helps bring the whole thing alive and can be really handy.

Apart from outside community resources we are now in the very first stages of trying out the On-Line learning units. We have got into the Antarctica units for certain group activities and the kids have been held back by my technology knowledge more than anything else. That’s a really fantastic resource and it’s so very very big to get into. They are starting to learn how to use the on-line units.

ICT underpins all of our work. We have three designated computers but we have access to the three from the classroom next door (they are all actually out in the corridor, facing back into the classroom through open windows). So the kids can have access to six computers for a half day each day. They all have Internet access, and they’re all networked. The children have their own network accounts so they save their work into one folder on the network. At the end of the year they will take everything they have done home on a CD. They can then do some very outlandish PowerPoints or things that they can keep. In the past they have had to delete them because you can’t print them in a form worthy of having and not costing a fortune in ink.

They also use the computers for English research. For example, they used the Lemony Snicket website as a resource when we were looking at those books. They also use them for word processing, publishing and PowerPoint. They are also quite conversant with Front Page and creating their own websites, which will be going on the intranet next term. There is a whole language associated with doing Front Page presentations as well as PowerPoint which is a whole new area you can go into. You have to know the right type of language to use to put across the message you trying to convey. That also applies to email, which has become big with every child in their own designated TigerMail account. They are now emailing each other and everybody else and there’s a specific language for that as well.

There’s been some careful guidance about appropriateness and it’s also important to learn that email is not something that is going to consume your life. The children learn early on that your messages have to be short, your content or intention very clear straight away, without any long and very flowery statements. There are also different ways of signing an email, you tend not to say ‘yours sincerely’ but ‘regards’; cheers’ or whatever. It’s a much more casual form of communication, which is not the same thing as formal letter writing.

We try to uncover the different genres of writing over the space of the year, tying in with the unit we are doing. Normally we use the contract structure, so the children are contracted over a period of time to do it and there would some activity that would be compulsory and a list of optional ones. The final optional one is to negotiate with the teacher. The child might come up with a really good idea and then I’ve got to see if it fits my educational plan. If it doesn’t then we might modify the idea a bit so we are satisfying both our needs. That way you the kids have ownership to say ‘I would like to follow this line’.

When we are doing a major unit of work we try to aim towards a large assembly presentation at the end of the unit. The children use data shows and laptops to create a big presentation where they share their work with the whole school audience. It’s working towards a purpose and it fits nicely into the Speaking and Listening KILOs. Presentations like this help the children to take pride in what they do, and increase their motivation and commitment.

The children in the class come from either of two groups. There are those who are very extrovert and confident speakers and listeners. They are used to being listened to, they are used to being involved in arts and drama classes and so they are highly capable. Then there is a group who hasn’t had any of that experience. These children usually don’t speak much in public at all. But from the very beginning of the year they come in to this class knowing that there’s an expectation that they will present to assemblies and I think that expectation helps. We just start off with small things, often just sharing structures (such as Think-Pair-Share) so I don’t throw the very hesitant child into a situation they’re not going to cope with.

There’s also time in the classroom where I will carefully put the quieter ones to the front, and because we do a lot of work of reporting back, there will be a lot of opportunities to share with the whole class as well. The class climate is one of everyone being supportive of each other. There are no put-downs so the children are happy to have a go and know there is not going to be a consequence of being put down or laughed at. That makes a huge difference to the way the kids react to each other. So we go on from that, then we have times when they have to share in their assemblies and it just tends to snowball over time. When they have created a big PowerPoint they want to show the world. Last year’s group did a big presentation on the planets, and we sat down and worked out mathematically the relative scale of all the planets and then made scale models of our solar system. The children were very keen to be walking in the big Saturns and the big Jupiters and talking about those, holding up huge planets a metre across.

It’s good to have a prop too. If a child is holding Pluto with a little bit of Blue-tac between two fingers, they tend to feel very comfortable with the eyes of the audience on what they are holding. It’s the same with the PowerPoint. I help them to understand that the focus of the audience is not on them, it’s there on the screen, so then they feel more comfortable with presenting.

Presenting is a very important part of the program. In Term one when the children participate in the Nestlè Write Around Australia competition, they share the stories within the class and with the other participating classes as well because there is a notion of building a culture across the years. And then they have the Tournament of Minds, which is very much on the stage in front of everyone. We have a trial day prior to doing it so they know what they are going in for, but there is also the school culture that basically this is what you do. If you get to grade 6, you do Tournament of Minds, and all kinds of other activities such as Tasmanian Science Talent Search. So they come on board knowing that’s part of the Grade 6 year, so it tends to break down the barriers. They are not doing something completely new, they see it’s been done before, which helps.

They also know that other students before them have had fun doing it, it’s all part of the responsible nature of the year we have. It’s not just part of their English program, it’s part of the general culture. Every activity you do relates to some other part of the curriculum or part of your role in the school community. Even activities such as working in the canteen, serving all the kids, gets those children who are much quieter and more hesitant to suddenly be out there taking on a leadership role. They’re much more happy then to be in the public eye. All those roles help.

Teaching now is completely different from the way it was ten years ago. I take up any professional development opportunities I can. Another good source of ideas for me has been my involvement in the Beginning Teachers Program as a mentor teacher. I’ve gained a lot from listening to the PCO’s and senior curriculum officers this year. That’s how I heard about on-line learning. I wasn’t even aware of that before, even though I’m responsible for IT in the school.

In terms of English, you’ve got to keep tabs on the literature. It’s important to keep a finger on the pulse of all the new books coming out not only Children’s Book Council ones but just ones within the school community that kids are really firing off on. We’re lucky to have Carol, our library aide, and Dani both constantly reading new books and sending them straight to us. Because of this team structure in the school, the English program in the classroom is just so much better.

The spelling program covers three main areas. In most classes there is a major group of very competent spellers. The main structure then involves a grade 6 teacher ironing any minor errors they’re making and vocabulary extension. This is achieved with words associated with the current unit .We also work on basic structural understanding. We have tasks focusing on the nature of adjectives, nouns, verbs and so on. On most occasions I try to base it on the unit although sometimes I will pick up a book and they will have to do an activity — that’s in the quiet sit-down time in the early part of the day. That comes directly after handwriting. For homework, I have a target group of those who have come out on the South Australian spelling test as being at age or below. These children have an individualised program where I test each child and find where their errors are. Then they have individual word lists which we set up at the beginning of term. We do all the housekeeping at the beginning of each term but it self-maintains, roughly, with constant checking. At the beginning of term they get their 11/12 word lists. They have a whole series of tasks which tend to be a bit generic so that they fit with all the different lists.

The spelling tasks are done in partnership with the parents. We talk to parents about their child’s spelling being of concern based on the test and they’re always happy to be involved because they see the value of the partnership. So we have got the range of groups, that’s how spelling is tackled.

My background in boys’ literacy probably comes from the fact that I have two sons. One is in grade 5 at this school and one is in grade one. The grade 5 boy was capable at the skill of reading but was reluctant to read, so that was part of the reason why I got involved in trying to track down things. I can’t say it was purely professional motivation, it was also personal. So I’ve been working with the two teacher aides to create a book list, categorised under author and grade level, of books in our library that are appealing to boys. It will have books such as Emily Rhodda’s Deltora Quest or the Tony Ross series, Books for Boys. Once the whole list is on the school web site it will be available to parents to see what we have here for their boys to read. It will also be available for the staff and the children to access. At the end of first term, after Easter onwards, I worked with groups of boys from different classes who were assessed as being at risk. My aim was to just try and get a handle on some way to get them enthusiastic about reading. Everything else hadn’t worked, so what could we try? I started off taking a selection of books from the My Sister’s a Yoyo series by Gretel Killeen. I used an office that was free and we would just sit down in there as an informal group and we would talk about books. We would read passages from the books. The grade 3/4 boys especially found the Gretel Killeen stuff appealing to start with. That sort of wore off, but it was a good impetus to start with. Then we have looked at other books like Margaret Clark’s and Andy Griffiths’, which became very popular with those boys who were competent readers but just not interested. They found those books very interesting. Unfortunately that program stopped at the end of the term because I went back onto class full time, but I’ve been keeping in touch with some of the key individuals who were making big progress, who would have been really at risk. I do that more on incidental times such as when we pass in the corridor. But that’s the program as we ran it. They would have to do some tasks on with the more traditional literature focus, like writing a book blurb, but I had the kids doing it in interesting ways. They were be able to import things they needed. We found images that they were able to import, like a picture of the book. Or they digitally photographed the book or a character out of the book. The boys always found the IT side of it interesting and they would then write a description recommending the book to somebody else. They found because they were engaging in the text as well as doing something associated with the text, it had a double whammy in effect. They were very involved in it. That, and the small, non-threatening nature of just being in a small group of boys was very effective.

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Panorama of Tony's classroom at
Gouburn Street Primary School

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