Expressive_spoken language difficulties

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					Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy service              GreenwichNHS
                                                                 Teaching Primary Care Trust

                  Secondary school students –Advice sheet
                      Expressive Language Difficulties

Expressive language means using spoken words in sentences to convey
information. When we talk we need to find the right vocabulary from our heads
and put the words in the correct order to get our message across. Spoken
language is a valuable tool to communicate an individual’s needs, desires and
thoughts. Students with good spoken language skills are able to:
     Assert their personality
     Make requests
     Refuse
     Demand
     Direct
     Express their feelings
     Ask questions
     Talk about their experiences
     Convey a message
     Express an opinion
     Defend themselves
     Make friends

Difficulties with spoken language can also impact on thinking skills. Those of
us with good language skills constantly use ‘talking in our heads’ to
remember, plan, problem solve, stop our impulses and generate ideas.

Student’s that have difficulty making themselves understood may become
frustrated. This can lead to challenging behaviour in some cases.

Classroom management and differentiation
    Ask the student if there are any words that are new to them. Write them
      down in a vocabulary book with a picture if possible. Do this for any
      new vocabulary. This will help them find the word they want to use
    Encourage the student to say new words. If it is a long word, try
      clapping out the syllables.
    Encourage student to speak in full sentences where appropriate. Give
      them ‘sentence starters’ if necessary e.g. ‘I think….’ ‘ The experiment
    Give extra thinking time to allow the student to plan and organise their
      thoughts into words and sentences. E.g. Ask the question then say ‘I’ll
      come back to you in a minute.’
    ‘Model’ sentences back to student correctly if their sentences are
      incorrect e.g. wrong word used, wrong word order, tense etc… e.g. ‘ I
      wented to get the fire.’ You could say ‘ Yes, you went to get the
      Bunsen burner….this is called a Bunsen burner.’(emphasise new
      words/words you needed to correct).
Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy service

     If you don’t understand the student, ask them to speak more slowly,
      say it in a different way or point/show you what they mean.
    For those students that can sometimes ‘waffle on…’ Encourage them
      to get to the point and just answer the question or give only information
      that is needed. (You may need to model this.)
    Make sure you give the student lots of opportunities to answer
      questions and give opinions, re phrase what the teacher said. E.g. you
      could say ‘What do you think?’…. ‘you could answer that question’. The
      more the student can use language the more likely it is to develop and
      they are more likely to increase in confidence.
    If a student is struggling to explain something and you have an idea,
      give them a choice of words/ sentences which you think they may
      mean. E.g.
   student says ‘ pass me that stibler please miss’
   teacher: ‘Do you mean stapler or hole punch?’

Independent learning skills
    Word finding strategies- If the student is unable to think of a word they
      can be encouraged to describe it (see word web for ideas on how to
      describe words)/think of a similar word.
    Use question board (attached) incorporating the 4 key questions:
      ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’. If appropriate this could be extended to
      use ‘why’ and ‘how’. This will help students structure their language
      when retelling a story or event. This could be used in many different
      lessons, e.g. retelling main events from an English book, explaining an
      experiment, formulating a story, talking about another culture or religion
      in humanities or retelling a historical event. The ‘Event’ board attached
      can be used to help students explain something that has happened to
      them e.g. in the playground/at lunchtime.
    Teach students to use set-phrases to check others have understood
      e.g. ‘ did you understand?’ ‘Am I using the right word?’
   • Teach students how to use self talk
      Model useful phrases to say to themselves when approaching and
      completing a task or dealing with a situation,
      e.g. What do I want to say? What should I do first? How should I
               it? Am I talking too fast/slow? I’m getting lost! Take a minute.
               I know this is scary, but I can do it! What are my options