KS3/4 English - Teaching Talking 2

Speaking and listening skills are often sidelined at Key Stage 3 in favour of reading and writing. Teaching Talking 2 follows Kate Bomford, a newly qualified teacher at Swanlea School, east London, as she plans and delivers a lesson based on Louis Sachar's novel Holes.

Structuring opportunities for purposeful speaking and listening into the mainstream work of the curriculum is especially important at Swanlea, where most of the pupils have English as an additional language. This Year 8 lesson involves pair work and a group sorting activity. Kate helps the class use speech to hypothesise and develop their thinking about some of the main characters and their motivations.

Kate's mentor is John Yandell, her former PGCE tutor at the Institute of Education. Together they review a video of the lesson and discuss problems, achievements and ways forward. The pupils themselves offer opinions on what works well for them and how much they appreciate the time to talk. "It helps me think", says one pupil.