Effective communication is an essential skill for
life. From understanding the importance of first
impressions to having the confidence to speak in
meetings, from sending appropriate emails to making
a connection with someone over the phone – a
high level of communication is necessary in so many
aspects of life.
Children benefit from activities which develop communication
and give them the tools and language to express themselves.
Students need new vocabulary to be able to describe
their learning and experiences, as well as activities
which challenge them out of their communication ‘comfort
zones.’
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case studies]
With more than a dozen SEN students in a class of
31 Year Six children, Rachel is always looking for
new ways to engage her pupils. During her term’s
topic based around ‘Chocolate’ she decided
to introduce an explicit ‘enterprise’ element
where the children were set the challenge of designing,
costing, making and selling a chocolate product.
Children went through an ‘application process’ to
secure positions in ‘companies.’ They
had to identify their own strengths and weaknesses
and write letters and go through ‘interviews.’ This
process was really illuminating for the children,
who had to match their skills to the different roles
and justify why. One boy said he wanted to be a ‘promoter’ because
he knew he could talk a lot!
Once formed the ‘companies’ had to brainstorm
ideas and negotiate between competing opinions. Groups
developed strategies to deal with the disparate ideas – some
voted, sometimes the ‘Chair’ took the
final decision. Children looked at the power of advertising,
and the importance of using persuasive language and
different ways of communicating messages. They wrote
their own slogans and then created and performed
adverts in front of the class, stretching their normal
communication boundaries with the added element of
role play and presentation.
What felt markedly different about Rachel’s
class was just how able the pupils were to express
what they were doing and why. Many times a child
can be in the middle of doing a wonderfully fun ‘enterprise’ activity,
but when asked what they think ‘enterprise’ is
they don’t really know. One ‘director’ in
Rachel’s class said it was about ‘working
together to make something,’ which was delivered
with the confidence that only comes with a clearly
developed idea. Rachel said she had regular discussions
to reinforce learning, but also believed that children
needed the visual prompts to be able to develop ideas
and communicate clearly.
She said: “Thinking and writing are important,
but speaking and listening are too. They have got
to be able to express themselves coherently, and
listen to others and learn. They need the visual
stimulus – it helps everything sink in. They
have got to know ‘why’ they are doing
something too. The project made developing these
skills easy – it captured their imagination
and gave everything a purpose. I’ve seen a
real change in them.”
