"If they say it, they can write it."
A friend once told me a story about how she would rehearse what she was going to say before she made a phone call. She said she wanted to appear knowledgeable, concise, and wanted to establish the purpose of the phone call right away. We all share the need to sound intelligible, but sometimes we just don’t know how to accomplish it.
Students need oral rehearsals. Once students have had an opportunity to verbalize their thinking, the transfer to writing will be expeditious besides establishing spontaneity in speaking concisely and cogently. It will cement and build confidence for future communication and collaboration. They will be able to express their ideas and their thinking about content with confidence.
What can you do to enhance this?
- Provide sentence stems that target the topic.
- Provide transitional phrases that will connect ideas and show relationships between and among the ideas.
- Provide a list of vocabulary words related to the content.
- Ensure that students understand the content.
- Refrain from content and cognitive overload.
- Provide purposeful opportunities for speaking and collaborating.
