oral language essay

• Knowledge Base

Oral Language Development Essay

• Author Kimberly Ball
• Category Uncategorized

Disclaimer: This paper has been submitted by a student. This is not a sample of the work written by professional academic writers.

Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of StudySaurus.

Introduction

Language can be thought of as four-legged stool. The four legs are oral language (speaking) skills, listening skills, reading skills and writing skills. All four legs are important; each leg helps to support and balance the others. These skills form the basis of instruction in early childhood education. In the next four lessons, I will describe these skills and ways of enhancing them to foster language development. In this lesson, I will describe oral language development. I will also describe some common language production problems in early childhood and ways of dealing with them.

Oral Language Skills

Oral language skills are also referred to as speech or speaking skills. Developmentally, oral language takes precedence over the other aspects of language development. It forms the basis of communication. Although oral language is not the only mode of communication, it is the foundation of the other modes of communication.

Children’s oral language skills develop in stages. There is need to identify the child’s oral skills and find ways of developing them. Now, let us look at the child’s speaking skills in stages and how we can promote these skills.

Birth to Two Years Old

During the early infancy stage of life, the child communicates through cries, cooing, babbling and patterned intonations. A mother or caregiver needs to understand the infant’s cries, sounds and signals and to respond appropriately. First and foremost it is important to understand that the sounds made by the baby are an effort to communicate. As such these attempts should not be ignored. An infant who is not responded to appropriately is likely to become discouraged and is less likely to make sounds.

Suggestions that can be Used to Promote the Infants’ Sound Making and Subsequent First Words

1) Respond to the child’s cries, try to identify the reason for the cry so that you can respond appropriately for example if the child is crying because of hunger feed him or her, if the cry is because of wetness and change him or her.

2) Touching, holding, smiling and looking at a baby promotes language and builds confidence in the baby so that he or she can communicate without fear.

3) Hold the infant firmly and gently and make soft gentle sounds while holding him or her close.

4) Talk in a pleasant soothing voice and use simple language.

5) Make a game out of the infant’s smiles, sounds and movements.

6) Imitate the infants babbling cooing or other sound making.

7) Whisper in the infant’s ear to soothe him or her.

8) Surround the infant with sounds: this provides the infant with sounds that he or she can imitate. Such sounds include soft music from a radio, singing songs to them, the clock alarm music, musical toys etcetera.

9) Bring the child’s attention to environmental sounds like a dog’s barking, a bird singing, the doorbell ringing. Sounds made by animals in the environment are interesting to listen to.

10) Respond to the child’s sound making with delight and excitement

11) Talk about sounds when you hear them for example “ knock-knock daddy is at the door”

12) Pause and wait for the child’s response.

13) Say names of object whenever you see them so that the infant learns to associate names with objects.

One To Three Years Old

At the end of the first year the baby is speaking using one word, soon he can use two or three words in the telegraphic speech. The infant needs to listen to words. During the second year the baby is likely to develop a vocabulary of up to 150 words.

Suggestions to Promote 1-3 Year Olds’ Oral Language Skills

1) Continue with the suggestions for developing oral language during the first year. Additional techniques can be used.

2) Begin to expand and extend the child’s language. One method of doing this is called scaffolding. In scaffolding, an adult provides a verbal response for a baby who is not yet capable of making the response. For example when a baby says, “Ball” the adult responds “Do you want your ball?” or “Here is your nice, big ball”. In addition to expanding the child’s language, the adult can extend by asking the child to do something that demonstrates understanding and extends his or her thinking for example “Here is your nice, big ball. Can you throw the ball to Mary?”

3) New experiences will help to develop language: select songs, rhymes, poems that use language they can understand.

4) Take walks with the child and talk about the things you see.

5) Involve children in activities and surround these activities with language.

6) Tell children stories in simple and clear language.

7) Look at and talk about pictures with children.

8) Read books with and for them.

9) Develop language games that you can play with children. These should use simple language.

Three To Six Year Olds

A great deal of language development occurs between three to six years of age. I discussed these developments in section 5.2. In addition to those developments certain characteristics are typical of preschool children’s language.

1) Their language is egocentric – they do not consider the needs of the listener – they assume that the listener already knows what they are talking about. For example, the child can speak faintly and still expect you to hear. The child can leave out important features or parts of a story, even though he or she is aware of them.

2) Much of children’s speech may not be intended as communication. This speech is referred to as non-communicative utterances or private speech. In this speech the child talks softly to him or herself, either in privacy or in the presence of others. Most of this speech is about the child’s ongoing activities. Children talk about what they are doing or what they are going to do. In addition they talk to and for dolls etcetera. The other day, I watched a five-year old girl, Mwende, playing with paper and crayons. She was not aware that anyone was listening to her, but I was. Suddenly she said after making some marks on the paper, “You funny girl what have you done? You have used the wrong crayon. Mwende sometimes you amuse me.” I wondered, “Is she reprimanding herself, expressing a feeling or trying to express an emotion?” One thing was certain though. She was not by any chance trying to communicate to anyone. This is an example of non-communicative utterance (private speech). There are three kinds of such utterances:

a) Repetitions – the child merely repeats or mimics another person’s speech. The child in most cases is not aware that he or she is mimicking but imagines the statement is his or her original one.

b) Monologue – this is the speech of a child who is merely talking alone and just talking to him or herself.

c) Collective monologue – this happens when several children talk each to him or herself at the same time.

Suggestions for Promoting Three to Six Years Old Children’s Oral Language

1) Tell them stories

2) Read stories for them and with them

3) Encourage them to tell and retell stories

4) Engage children in conversations

5) When they engage in conversations, encourage them to take turns. You can do this by pointing at the next speaker or by having them raise their hands to speak.

6) Provide them with pictures and let them talk about them.

7) Ask children questions that require “more than one word’ answers.

8) Encourage children to play

9) Engage them in simple poems

10) Teach them tongue twisters and have them say them. Examples of tongue twisters include “Betty bought bitter butter” so “Betty bought a better butter to make the bitter butter better”. She sells sea shells by the sea”

11) Be a good language model – speaking clearly, fluently and pronounce words accurately so they can hear and imitate you.

Was this material helpful?

About studysaurus, community. knowledge. success..

StudySaurus is run by two uni-students that still get a kick out of learning new things. We hope to share these experiences with you.

Ideas ,  concepts ,  tutorials,   essay papers  – everything we would’ve liked to have known, seen or heard during our high-school & UNI years, we want to bring to YOU.

Privacy & Cookies Policy Terms and Conditions DMCA Request

• Reading Instruction

What Is Oral Language? Understanding Its Components and Impact on Reading Instruction

Unlike mathematics or science, reading is the only academic area in which we expect children to arrive as kindergarteners with a basic skill level. Research has shown that oral language—the foundations of which are developed by age four—has a profound impact on children’s preparedness for kindergarten and on their success throughout their academic career. 

Oral language is often associated with vocabulary as the main component . However, oral language is comprised of much more. In the broadest definition, oral language consists of six areas: phonology, grammar, morphology, vocabulary, discourse, and pragmatics. The acquisition of these skills often begins at a young age, before students begin focusing on print-based concepts such as sound-symbol correspondence and decoding. Because these skills are often developed early in life, children with limited oral language ability are typically at a distinct disadvantage by the time they enter kindergarten (Fielding et al., 2007). Furthermore, Title I and English Learner students are often among the most at-risk.

Let's take a deeper look at these six areas of oral language:  

Phonology covers the organization or system of sounds within a language . Once the phonological system has been acquired for basic listening and speaking, children begin to develop phonological awareness—the awareness of words in sentences or syllables in words. Other aspects of phonological awareness include rhyme, alliteration, onset rime (word families), blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds. At the most complex level is phonemic awareness (blending, segmenting, and manipulating words at the individual sound—or phoneme—level).  

Vocabulary (Semantics)

The development of vocabulary focuses both on expressive and receptive vocabulary. Expressive vocabulary represents the words a student actively uses when talking, writing, or otherwise communicating. Receptive vocabulary represents the words that a student understands—based on context and background experiences—but may not necessarily use when speaking or writing. A common misconception is the idea that vocabulary can be measured simply by the sheer number of words an individual can understand and use, although this actually pertains only to the breadth of vocabulary knowledge. To measure the depth of vocabulary knowledge, a broader definition also includes a focus on such areas as: multiple meanings of words (homonyms), shades of meaning, figurative language, and relationships between words (synonym, antonyms, analogies).  

Sometimes considered to be a subset of syntax and sometimes considered as part of vocabulary (semantics), morphology is focused on the smallest units of meaning within a word, as well as the rules about how those words are formed. For example, if we were to examine the word “cats,” a basic analysis would show there are four phonemes: /k/, /a/, /t/, and /s/.  However, the word only has two morphemes (meaningful word parts): “Cat” is a feline animal, and “s” tells us that there is more than one cat. Morphology can also include the study of structural analysis—how words are joined together and build vocabulary by analyzing the morphological structure of the word (prefix, root, and suffix)—which then helps build upon the child’s foundation in vocabulary.

Grammar (Syntax)

As children develop their oral language skills, they also develop an understanding of grammar—the set of structural rules that govern the combination of words and phrases into sentences, as well as how sentences are combined into paragraphs. Knowledge of these rules helps children understand the relationship among words and apply vocabulary and abstract thinking to their comprehension of oral language.    

Considered by some reading experts as the “hidden curriculum” in a classroom, pragmatics requires the understanding of the social use of language. This includes social norms regarding conversational turn-taking, personal space, and appropriate behavior with peers and authority figures in a variety of common social situations. In some classroom settings, students lacking background experience—which can be attributable to cultural differences in some instances—don’t understand group dynamics and expectations regarding behavior. Understanding a variety of situations prepares students for more successful comprehension at later stages, including both listening and reading.  

Oral and written communication, also known as discourse, is a critical skill. For example, narrative storytelling follows a very specific format: Stories typically have a beginning, middle, and end. They describe the main characters and the setting in which they live, the conflict, and the resolution. An understanding of story structure is essential in order to read, understand, and write narrative. In contrast, consider the structure of expository, or informational text. These forms of writing also follow certain structures, such as: persuasive, cause and effect, compare and contrast, and procedural. It is critically important that students understand these structures through listening comprehension before they even begin to focus on reading comprehension. Before they can begin to write these kinds of stories, they first need to be able to understand and tell stories in those formats.

Children with a history of oral language impairment are more likely to present with reading difficulties than their peers (general population). Some research identified this increased likelihood to be as great as four to five times more likely than their peers (Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 2001). It has been shown that children who struggle with phonemic awareness have significant difficulty acquiring phonic word-attack strategies. There is also evidence that a child’s level of vocabulary significantly impacts reading development, but there has been debate in the research over whether or not it is only vocabulary or if reading acquisition is affected by all of the oral language components mentioned above. A recent study of reading comprehension found that both reading accuracy as well as oral language skills, beyond just vocabulary, predict performance on outcome measures (Foorman, Herrara, Petscher, Mitchell, & Truckenmiller, 2015a). 

The key to instruction in oral language is assessing these skills (mentioned above) early on and focusing instruction on building a foundation of these skills through listening comprehension and oral expression. Building the foundation of oral language skills can begin as soon as a child enters school. Since some children enter the school environment already four times behind their peers due to sheer exposure to words (Hart & Risley, 1995), it is critical to ensure kindergarten assessments include components of oral language so educators have the appropriate data to target instruction. Research has indicated that these early skills are among the strongest indicators of future success (Foorman, Koon, Petscher, Mitchell, & Truckenmiller, 2015b), so an early screener of language skills and an early and intensive focus on oral language skills—before students can read independently—is imperative for all students to read at grade level and succeed in all other subject areas.  

WHAT DO YOU THINK? What is your school or district doing to help students develop their critical oral language skills? Connect with us on  Twitter ,   Facebook , and  LinkedIn  and let us know your thoughts and experiences on this topic.

You Might Also Like

13 Teacher Tools That Combine Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence

Unlock the power of Human Intelligence alongside Artificial Intelligence in the classroom. Explore how digital tools aid ELA teachers in accelerating student learning while reclaiming valuable classroom time. Discover the harmony between AI and HI for enhanced student outcomes.

5 Documentaries Every Educator Should Watch

Documentary films are primed to make a real impact on the educational landscape. Here are five documentaries that every educator should watch.

The Road to Equity: Helping Multilingual Learners Grow from Spectators to Players

Join Aurora Daniels on the journey toward educational equity for multilingual learners in rural communities. This blog post explores practical strategies, insight, and collaborative approaches to empower students and foster inclusive classrooms. Discover the pivotal role of every teacher in embracing linguistic diversity and fostering student engagement.

A Cambium Learning® Group Brand

• Administrators
• Newsletters and Webinars

Oral Language

What is it.

Oral language (OL), sometimes called spoken language, includes speaking and listening—the ways that humans communicate with one another. OL skills provide the foundation for word reading and comprehension. They are at the heart of listening and reading comprehension, serving as a predictor for both.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are oral language skills important to literacy.

• Oral language is the foundation of written language
• Reading is a language-based skill. The relationship between oral language and reading is reciprocal (Kamhi & Catts, 1989) with each influencing the other to varying degrees as children progress through school.
• You must be able to understand language at an oral level in order to be expected to understand it at the text level.
• It’s difficult to learn to read words if you do not know what they mean
• Children with weak oral language skills are at risk for learning to read and comprehend.

What is Academic Language and how do I teach my students to use it in my classroom?

Academic Language, also referred as Academic or Standard English, is the language of the classroom and text. Students must have a command of Academic English in order to achieve in school. Teachers should be attuned to their own spoken language and model Academic English by creating spaces and providing opportunities where they would expect their students to use Academic English in both written and oral forms. With younger children, begin with explicit teaching and modeling.  Show and Tell, and Circle Time are great places to expand sentences and provide models with Academic English.  And keep in mind that all children–whether native English speakers or English Language Learners–receive the same practice and correction. For older children, consider starting with writing because the students have time to think about academic language, as well as time to revise.  Then, after giving time to rehearse, ask students to make an oral presentation.

Tips for teachers and administrators 

Teacher tip: pair up purposeful partners, teacher tip: teach academic language.

Explicitly teach and practice “academic language,” the language used in the classroom and workplace, the language of text and assessments, and the language of academic success and power.  Try these  academic phrases .

Teacher tip: Use Formal Frames

Use this  formal frame activity  to help students produce competent verbal or written responses. These begin as sentence starters, but add critical grammatical and lexical clarification and support.

Tips for Principals

Read more to learn more.

• Beck, I.L., & McKeown, M.G. (2001).   Text talk: Capturing the benefits of read aloud experiences for young children.  The Reading Teacher 55 , 10-35.
• Gatlin-Nash, B. (Summer 2020). Linguistic differences and learning to read for nonmainstream dialect speakers . Perspectives in Language and Literacy 46  (3) , 28-32.
• Goldenberg, C. (Summer 2013).   Unlocking the research on English learners.  What we know—and don’t yet know—about effective instruction .   American Educator  4-12, 38.
• Hirsch, E.D., Jr. (Spring 2003).   Reading comprehension requires knowledge–of words and the world.  American Educator 27  (1), 10-22, 28-29, 44.
• Komesidou, R., & Hogan, T.P. (Summer 2020).  Preschool language precursors to later reading problems. Perspectives in Language and Literacy 46  (3) , 37-41.
• Spear-Swerling, L.  (Summer 2016).  Listening comprehension, the Cinderella skill. Giving the neglected stepchild her due.   Perspectives on Language and Literacy 42  (3), 9-15.

Literacy How Professional Learning Series

The Literacy How Professional Learning Series translates the latest reading research into how-to instruction. The Knowledge to Practice book Series—Phonemic Awareness and Phonics, Syntax, Vocabulary, and Comprehension—is based on the current and comprehensive Literacy How reading model. It draws upon the authors’ decades of expertise and experience working with thousands of general and special education teachers. The Series emphasizes Pre-K-3rd grade conceptual and skill development. Teachers of older emerging or struggling readers will also find these tools useful.

Phonemic Awareness and Phonics—the keys to breaking the code!

Learn More  |   Buy Now

Syntax is essential—even for beginning readers!

Vocabulary knowledge is essential for effective comprehension!

Comprehension is the goal of reading—even for beginning readers!

Oral Language Development: The Foundation for Literacy

Nari Carter, PhD; Debra Hopkins, MEd “Children’s early exposure to a rich set of language practices is critical for their later reading success.”

(Neuman, Kaefer, Pinkham, 2018) Introduction

When infants begin to make sounds or say words, adults and other caregivers often respond with excitement and encourage further oral expression. Adults’ excitement and encouragement is not only fun and rewarding for infants and toddlers, it is highly important to the development of children’s oral language. Oral language develops as young children interact with adults and peers, are exposed to language in its various forms, and express and experiment with language themselves (Konishi, Kanero, Freeman, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2014; Honig, 2007). From infancy into early childhood, oral language begins to develop and establish the foundation of full language development, which includes utilization of the mechanics of language, reading, writing, listen- ing, and speaking.

Oral language development during preschool is critically important for early literacy acquisition (Whorral & Cabell, 2016) and for comprehending reading when students advance in school. Research has established the relationship between oral language, early literacy, and later reading comprehension, which is the ability to understand the meaning of text (Hjetland, Lervag, Lyster, Hagtvet, Hulme, & Helby-Lervag (2018); Na- tional Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Shanahan & Lonigan, 2013). Shanahan and Lonigan (2013) reported that oral language has strong predictive correlations with reading comprehension and decoding skills (.70 and .58 respectively), meaning students with strong oral language skills are likely to demonstrate greater decoding and comprehension ability in school. Additionally, early oral language acquisition predicts rates of comprehension development in early elementary students. (Hjetland et al., 2018) (Figure 1).

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 3 Oral language is foundational for learning to read. If students enter school disadvantaged in terms of oral language development, they are likely to lag behind their peers in comprehension as they advance in school and as language demands increase with text complexity and academic discourse (Shanahan & Lonigan, n.d.). Reading proficiency and comprehension are essential for school success and impact college and career readi- ness. Researchers (Chiang, Walsh, Shanahan, et al., 2017) have consistently reported that poor reading ability is likely to have detrimental effects on future income, employment opportunities, and participation in society. In contrast, students who can read by third grade are more likely to graduate from high school, with improved prospects for earning higher wages (Breslow, 2012).

Considering the relationship between oral language and reading development, educators must understand oral language and know how to support and promote the acquisition of oral language skills for all students. Specifically, understanding the processes by which students acquire oral language skills is essential for sup- porting early reading and comprehension. This paper will (1) define oral language, (2) describe and define components of oral language, (3) demonstrate that oral language is the foundation for early literacy achieve- ment and later comprehension among school-age children, and (4) explore oral language development for specific populations of students.

FIGURE 1: Relationship of Oral Language and Reading Skills

Oral Language ord Comprehension Language Skills Reading

Develops through Oral language Oral language Oral language interactions with develops prior to ability is predic- ability is predic- adults and peers full language tive of later word tive of later and refers to ability including reading comprehension listening and reading, writing, speaking listening, and speaking

4 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. Oral Language: Components of Oral Language and Literacy Achievement

In the simplest form, oral language is the ability to understand spoken communications and to communicate verbally—it merely means communicating orally with others. However, oral communications involve more than just using words. Oral language consists of thinking, accessing linguistic knowledge, and the utilization of specific language skills. Components of oral language include phonology , syntax , semantics , morphology , and pragmatics (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019; Honig, 2007). Combined, the facets of oral language (in the framework of language development as a whole) are the mechanisms by which individuals achieve communicative goals and interact in society.

Oral language development is essential for early literacy development, comprehension, and social competence in school. Children who enter school with well-developed phonological, semantic, and grammatical knowledge, learn to read better than students who enter school with lower levels of oral language proficiency (Brynes & Wasik, 2019). In this section, we describe how oral language foundations are essential for reading success.

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 5 Phonological Processing

Phonology refers to the sounds produced in speech . When we speak, we use words. Words are composed of sounds, and the smallest unit of sound is a phoneme. When we say the word sat, we produce three sep- arate sounds s a t that are blended to form the word. Oral language development requires the ability to recognize sound as well as to segment sound and sound units to produce sounds.

Researchers Storch & Whitehurst (2002) identified a strong link between phonological processing and reading success. Phonological processing encompasses both receptive phonological skills and productive phonological competence (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019). Receptive phonological processing refers to the ability to recognize sound at various levels, including phoneme, syllable, and word, while being attuned to the prosody of spoken language . Productive phonological competence involves producing phonemes associated with native languages; combining phonemes into larger units such as syllables, onsets, rimes, words; and creating expressions that reflect the prosodic features of native languages. Both receptive and productive phonologi- cal processing skills are essential for learning to read.

The ability to process complex forms of language is particularly important for academic learning as students are exposed to abstract words, complex sentences, and sophisticated talk that permeates classroom instruction and conversation. (LaRue & Kelly, 2015)

When learning to read, students must understand the relationship between sounds processed and written representations of sounds. A core skill-deficit observed in segments of students identified with specific reading disabilities is the ability to analyze sound within spoken words (i.e., phonological processing skills such as phonemic awareness, phoneme discrimination, and rapid automatic naming) (McArthur & Castles, 2013; Snowling, 2000). Students who do not effectively process phonemic aspects of language are likely to have difficulty learning phonics, decoding words, reading multisyllable words, and fluently reading.

Morphology and Syntax Knowledge

Morphology. Morphology is the meaning associated with units of language. The smallest units of language that have meaning are morphemes . Words like dog, cat, freedom, and safety have a meaning, as do word parts such as dis, un, and in when used with words (i.e., dislike, unkind, incomplete). Morphology contributes to literacy by enabling students to decode and read longer words more accurately, understand elements of the writing system , and process elements of language analytically (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughan, & Vermeulen, 2003). Additionally, understanding that morphemes have meaning is foundational for deriving word meaning and learning vocabulary .

Syntax. Syntax is the grammatical structure of language. It refers to the rules related to word order and the construction of sentences. For example, in English, adjectives usually precede nouns, and double negatives are generally not acceptable grammatically. Sentence structure in the English language ranges from sim-

6 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. plistic forms of expression (e.g., I see mom) to highly complex structures involving clauses, modifiers, conjunc- tions, and other grammatic types. Combining components of language to express thought requires syntactic understanding.

Creating a syntactic expression is a process of combining morphemes into thoughts or sentences within specif- ic communicative structures. Knowledge of syntactic structure or grammar has been identified as a significant dimension of oral language (Lonigan & Milburn, 2017). The National Early Literacy Panel (2008) identified the ability to produce and comprehend grammar as having a substantial impact on later literacy skills.

Students access grammatical knowledge throughout their school day as they listen to instruction, answer questions, interact with peers, read texts, and produce written artifacts associated with learning. The ability to process complex forms of language is particularly important for academic learning as students are ex- posed to abstract words, complex sentences, and sophisticated talk that permeates classroom instruction and conversation (LaRue & Kelly, 2015). Without strong grammatical knowledge, students cannot become good readers or writers—grammar knowledge is foundational for school learning (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019).

Closely correlated with syntax knowledge, vocabulary is a significant dimension of oral language (Lonigan & Milburn, 2017). In building vocabulary, children associate words with specific concepts. To learn new concepts, children identify salient features related to concepts and attach meaning to words used to express specific concepts. For example, children learn that dogs have four legs, ears, tails, and fur. When they under- stand what a dog is, they can then understand what people refer to when they talk about dogs. Students then also understand what a dog is when they read about dogs. Understanding the meaning of words is essential for communicating and learning.

Similar to phonological processing, vocabulary involves both receptive skills (understanding words that are spoken by others) and productive skills (producing words that have meaning within the contexts used). Recep- tive vocabulary skills measured during preschool are a strong predictor of reading in second grade (Senechal

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 7 & LeFevre, 2002). Additionally, students who enter first grade with larger spoken vocabularies score the highest on reading achievement tests at the end of first grade (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019). Students with larger vocabu- laries have more robust reading comprehension than students with more limited word knowledge; vocabulary is therefore essential for reading success (Nippold, 2016). If students have limited vocabularies, it is almost impossible for them to become proficient readers.

Students who enter first grade with larger spoken vocabularies score the highest on reading achievement tests at the end of first grade. (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019)

Vocabulary develops with grammatical understanding—vocabulary and grammatical development are reciprocal processes. As students acquire vocabulary, they understand communications from others and then communicate thought using grammatical structures within contextualized conversations. Conversely, as children listen to others who express thought using conventional grammatical structures, they learn new words from the contexts of the interactions, are exposed to ideas associated with the vocabulary used in conversation, and therefore increase in language development. Students need both well-developed vocabu- laries and strong foundations in grammar to process classroom discourse and written texts.

Engaging in socially appropriate communications requires the use of a variety of linguistic styles or registers that vary according to context, the purpose for communicating, and by the relationship to those with whom communications occur (Wagner, Greene-Havas, & Gillespie, 2010). Pragmatics is the ability to adjust and adapt language functions to reflect the situation, audience, and interaction type and to use appropriate reg- isters given specific settings (e.g., formal vs. information situations). Skills such as staying on topic, contributing relevant information, adjusting content and style to the thoughts and feelings of the listener, and offering sup- port to conversational partners are utilized at school as children interact with peers and adults (Nippold, 2016). For example, when addressing a teacher, a child learns that appropriate titles are used in classrooms (such as Mr. B or Ms. K) and that discussions are focused on academic content, where skills such as staying on topic and contributing relevant information are important for learning.

In academic settings, communication styles vary by subject areas. For example, scientific discourse generally focuses on research methodology and the use of formal, structured language, compared to literary discourse that utilizes metaphors and other figurative expressions (Herrmann, 2015). Children who do not acquire the ability to adapt language according to context, purpose, and academic discipline may have difficulty learning from interactive classroom discussions. Knowing how to communicate in classrooms and contribute to aca- demic discourse is essential for school learning.

8 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. Social Competence and Communication

As evidenced in this paper, oral language is foundational for reading success. It is not surprising that oral language also contributes to positive relationships at school and academic engagement. School environ- ments are social environments, and socially skilled students perform better in school and engage more readily in school tasks (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019). Research has indicated that early peer relations predict academic performance in later grades. Children with lower social acceptance in first grade attained lower grades in fifth grade, through middle school, and achieve fewer years of education by age 25 (Rabiner, Godwin, & Dodge, 2016). Conversation skills and the ability to produce and comprehend implicit meaning in academic and social interactions correlate with social competence and significantly contributes to students’ ability to participate in learning processes at school.

School environments are social environments, and socially skilled students perform better in school and engage more readily in school tasks (Byrnes & Wasik, 2019).

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 9 Specific Populations of Students

Extensive research on oral language development highlights the importance of social, interactive environments for typical development. However, some populations of students may have fewer or more opportunities to de- velop oral language depending on their capacity to learn linguistics in environments they are exposed to, and their ability to process language.

English Learners

Learning more than one language may provide learning advantages for preschool and school-age students. Research indicates that early bilingualism is associated with executive function ability, working memory, and improved language skills among Pre-K students (Espinosa, 2015). Balanced bilingualism has long-term academic, linguistic, cognitive, social, cultural, and economic benefits (Espinosa, 2015; Bybee, Henderson, & Hinojosa, 2014).

”Children who have limited experience with [rich] linguistic interactions may have fewer opportunities to engage in the higher-order exchanges valued in school.” (New York University, 2017)

However, various factors such as equity, socioeconomic status, teacher shortages, academic support in lan- guages spoken, and access to high-quality education may diminish learning opportunities among English learn- ers. Academic indicators for English learners suggest a significant opportunity to improve instruction for English learners who historically lag behind peers in graduation rates and other indexes of academic proficiency.

Students should be supported in developing literacy in primary languages to improve educational outcomes for English learners. Proficiency in a primary language is a key factor that aids the development of literacy skills in a new language. English learners should receive high-quality input in each language spoken and should be encouraged to build on the skills they have in primary languages with the goal of becoming fully biliterate (Rios & Castillon, 2018).

Students in Poverty

Children’s early exposure to a rich set of language practices is critical for their later reading success (Neuman, Kaefer, & Pinkham, 2018). “Children who have limited experience with these kinds of linguistic interactions may have fewer opportunities to engage in the higher-order exchanges valued in school.” (New York University, 2017).

Socioeconomic factors may influence the opportunity to acquire oral language skills during the preschool years. Researchers (Colker, 2014; Hart & Risley, 2003; Snow, 2013) indicate that during preschool years, children living in poverty may be exposed to a lower quantity and quality of language learning environments. Additionally, when students in poverty attend school, the socioeconomic status of their school may impact language learning if they are not exposed to language-rich environments. New York University reported that students living in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty were less likely to have complex language building

10 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. opportunities both at home and at school (New York University, 2017). Students who have not experienced high-quality language environments are not as well prepared to learn to read when they enter school (Whorral & Cabell, 2016).

Therefore, it is critical for early childhood educators to provide oral language instruction for students whose environments have not supported strong development of oral language. These students need rich, high-quality linguistic environments that provide ample opportunity to learn new vocabulary, interact verbally with peers and adults, and become exposed to a wide range of communicative structures.

Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities may demonstrate oral language and reading impairments due to a variety of disabling conditions. Specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, and other health impair- ments are high-incidence disabilities that are likely to impact students’ ability to acquire oral language and reading skills necessary for school success.

In school systems, early identification of students with high-incidence disabilities is a challenge. Approxi- mately 39% of students receiving special education services are identified with specific learning disabilities, 15% with other health impairments, and 17.3% with speech or language impairments. Evidence suggests that students with specific language impairments are under-identified and that many children with lan- guage, reading, and learning disabilities are identified late (during upper elementary grades), or are not identified at all within school systems (Catts, Compton, Tomblin, & Bridges, 2012; Leach, Scarborough, & Rescorla, 2003; Lipka, Lesaux, & Seigel, 2006). As many as 1 in 5 children with learning and attention issues are not formally identified with a disabling condition (Horowitz, Rawe, & Whittaker, 2017).

“Each student is unique. While we can’t predict how any student will respond to an intervention, we can help students make progress and prevent struggles from becoming stumbling blocks. We can identify at-risk students early. We can use evidence-based instruction until the student becomes successful... Too often we aren’t doing enough early enough.” (Moats, 2010)

Students with disabilities are particularly at risk for poor reading outcomes. Nationally, 71% of students with disabilities are likely to score at Below Basic on NAEP Reading assessments (The Nation’s Report Card, 2017). Students with disabling conditions that affect oral language acquisition and reading ability must be identified early (during preschool and early elementary grades) so that they can receive individualized instruction designed to support them in acquiring skills necessary for school success.

Many students with disabilities can succeed in general education if given free and appropriate education as man- dated by law (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). Students need to be supported early, with evi- dence-based instruction (National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2017) that is individualized to meet their needs.

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 11 Conclusion

Oral language development begins early in life and is critical for acquiring the literacy skills necessary for suc- cess in school and college and career readiness. Oral language is multifaceted and includes the development of a variety of skills that establish the foundation for full language expression and use. In classrooms, educa- tors should incorporate oral language development in early elementary grades and provide ample structured and unstructured opportunities for students to interact with peers and adults in developing and utilizing oral communication skills. Specifically, processing and expressing sound, learning, and using new vocabulary while expressing ideas using rich, complex language structures can help students both academically and socially.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euis- adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euis- mod tincidunt ut laoreet. mod tincidunt ut laoreet.

12 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. References

Breslow, J. (2012). By the Numbers Dropping Out of High School. Frontline: Boston, MA Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ frontline/article/by-the-numbers-dropping-out-of-high-school/ Bybee, E., Henderson, K., & Hinojosa, R. (2014) An Overview of U.S. Bilingual Education: Historical Roots, Legal Battles and Recent Trends. Texas Education Review, 2 (2). Byrnes, J. P. & Wasik, B. A. (2019). Language and literacy development: What educators need to know (2nd ed.). Guilford Press: New York. Catts H. W., Compton D., Tomblin J. B., & Bridges M. S. (2012). Prevalence and nature of late-emerging poor readers. Journal of Educational Psychology , 104, 166–181. Chiang, H., Walsh, E., Shanahan, T., Gentile, C., Maccarone, A., Waits, T., Carlson, B., & Rikoon, S. (2017). An Exploration of Instructional Practices that Foster Language Development and Comprehension: Evidence from Prekindergarten through Grade 3 in Title I Schools (NCEE 2017-4024). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Colker, L. J. (2014). The Word Gap: The Early Years Make the Difference. Teaching Young Children, 7(3). Retrieved from https://www. naeyc.org/resources/pubs/tyc/feb2014/the-word-gap Espinosa, L. M. (2015). Challenges and benefits of early bilingualism in the Unites States’ context. Global Education Review, 2(1), 14-31. Hart, B. & T.R. Risley. 2003. “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3.” American Educator, 27 (1), 4- 9. Retrieved from www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2003/TheEarlyCatastrophe.pdf. Herrmann, E. (2015). Language register: What it is and why does it matter in education? Retrieved from http://exclusive.multibriefs. com/content/language-register-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/education Hjetland, H. N., Lervag, A., Lyster, S. H., Hagtvet, B. E., Hulme, C., & Melby-Lervag, M. (2018). Pathways to Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Study From 4 to 9 Years of Age. Journal of Educational Psychology, 111(5), 751-763. DOI: 10.1037/edu0000321. Honig, A. (2007). Oral language development. Early Child Development and Care, 177 (6 & 7), 581-613. Horowitz, S. H., Rawe, J., & Whittaker, M. C. (2017). The State of Learning Disabilities: Understanding the 1 in 5. New York: National Center for Learning Disabilities. Retrieved from https://www.ncld.org/news/newsroom/the-state-of-ld-understanding- the-1-in-5 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1400 (2004) Konishi, H., Kanero, J., Freeman, M. R., Golinkoff, R. M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2014) Six Principles of language development: Implications for second language learners. Developmental Neuropsychology, 39(5), 404-420, DOI: 10.1080/87565641.2014.931961 LaRue, A. & Kelly B. B. (Eds.). (2015). Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Leach, J. M., Scarborough, H. S., & Rescorla, L. (2003). Late-emerging reading disabilities. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95, 211–224. Lipka O., Lesaux N. K., & Seigel L. S. (2006). Retrospective analyses of the reading development of grade 4 students with reading disabilities: Risk status and profiles over 5 years. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 39, 364–378. Lonigan, C. J. & Milburn, T. F. (2017). Identifying the dimensionality of oral language skills of children with typical development in preschool through fifth grade. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60, 2185–219. DOI: 10.1044/2017_ JSLHR-L-15-0402 McArthur, G. & Castles, A. (2013). Phonological processing deficits in specific reading disability and specific language impairment: Same or different? Journal of Research in Reading, 36(3), 280-302. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2011.01503.x Moats, L. C. (2010). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (2nd ed.). Baltimore, MD: Brookes Publishing. Nagy, W., Berninger, V., Abbott, R., Vaughan, K., & Vermeulen, K. (2003). Relationship of morphology and other language skills to literacy skills in at-risk second-grade readers and at-risk fourth-grade writers. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(4), 730-742. National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2017). The state of learning disabilities: Understanding the 1 in 5. Retrieved from: https:// www.ncld.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Executive-Summary.Fin_.03142017.pdf National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: Report of the National Early Literacy Panel. Washington, DC: National Institute for Literacy. Neuman, S. B., Kaefer, T., & Pinkham, A. M. (2018). A double dose of disadvantage: Language experiences for low-income children in home and school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(1), 102–118. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000201 New York University. (2017). Low-income children missing out on language learning both at home and at school: A double dose of disadvantage. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170414105818.htm

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 13 Nippold, M. (2016). Later language development: School-age children, adolescents, and young adults, 4th Ed., Austin, TX: PRO-ED. Rabiner, d. L., Godwin, J., & Dodge, K. A. (2016). Predicting academic achievement and attainment: The contribution of early academic skills, attention difficulties, and social competence. School Psychology Review, 45(2), 250-267. Rios, C. & Castillon. (2018). Bilingual literacy development: Trends and critical issues. International Research and Review, 7(2), 85-96. Senechal, M., & LeFevre, J. A. (2002). Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: A five-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 73(2), 445-460. Shanahan, T., & Lonigan, C. J. (n.d.). The role of early oral language in literacy development. Language Magazine Improving Literacy & Communication. Retrieved from https://www.languagemagazine.com/5100-2/ Shanahan, T. & Lonigan, C. J. (2013). Early childhood literacy: The national early literacy panel and beyond. Baltimore: Brookes. Snow, K. (2013). “New research on early disparities: Focus on vocabulary and language processing,” NAEYC (blog), October 29. Retrieved from www.naeyc.org/blogs/gclarke/2013/10/new-research-early-disparities-focus... Snowling, M. J. (2000). Dyslexia . 2nd ed. Oxford: Wiley. Storck, S. A. & Whitehurst, G. J. (2002). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: new evidence of bidirectional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology , 30(1), 73-87. The Nation’s Report Card. (2017). National student group scores and score gaps. Retrieved from: https://www.nationsreportcard. gov/reading_2017/nation/gaps?grade=8 Wagner, L., Greene-Havas, M., & Gillespie, R. (2010). Development in children’s comprehension of linguistic register. Child Development, 81(6), 1678-1686). Whorral, J. & Cabell, S. Q. (2016). Supporting children’s oral language development in the preschool classroom. Early Childhood Education, 44, 335-341.

14 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc. Introduction

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper sus- cipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cons ectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cons ectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo#languageoflearning consequat.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, cons ectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation

Oral Language Development: The Foundation For Literacy 15 Introduction

imaginelearning.com

16 ©2020 Imagine Learning, Inc.

CR187 201029

• >> Return to Heinemann.com

Dedicated to Teachers

• Education Policy
• Building Language
• Early Childhood Literacy Summit
• Julie Russ Harris
• Nell K. Duke
• Nonie K. Lesaux
• Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language
• Middle School
• Language Arts
• Lucy Calkins
• View All Topics

What Is Oral Language?

In today’s linguistically diverse elementary classrooms, research suggests that a universal approach to building academic vocabulary and conceptual knowledge holds huge promise for closing the opportunity gaps among English learners. 

Today's blog is adapted from Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language , wherein Nonie Lesaux and Julie Harris present a knowledge-based approach to literacy instruction that supports young English learners’ (ELs) development of academic content and vocabulary knowledge and sets them up for reading success.

What is Oral Language?

Oral language is the system through which we use spoken words to express knowledge, ideas, and feelings. Developing ELs’ oral language, then, means developing the skills and knowledge that go into listening and speaking—all of which have a strong relationship to reading comprehension and to writing. Oral language is made up of at least five key components (Moats 2010): phonological skills, pragmatics, syntax, morphological skills, and vocabulary (also referred to as semantics ). All of these components of oral language are necessary to communicate and learn through conversation and spoken interaction, but there are important distinctions among them that have implications for literacy instruction.

The Components of Oral Language

A student’s phonological skills are those that give her an awareness of the sounds of language, such as the sounds of syllables and rhymes (Armbruster, Lehr, and Osborne 2001). In addition to being important for oral language development, these skills play a foundational role in supporting word-reading development. In the early stages of learning how to read words, children are often encouraged to sound out the words. But before even being able to match the sounds to the letters, students need to be able to hear and understand the discrete sounds that make up language. Phonological skills typically do not present lasting sources of difficulty for ELs; we know that under appropriate instructional circumstances, on average, ELs and their monolingual English-speaking peers develop phonological skills at similar levels, and in both groups, these skills are mastered by the early elementary grades. Students’ skills in the domains of syntax , morphology , and pragmatics are central for putting together and taking apart the meaning of sentences and paragraphs, and for oral and written dialogue.

Syntax refers to an understanding of word order and grammatical rules (Cain 2007; Nation and Snowling 2000). For example, consider the following two sentences: Sentence #1: Relationships are preserved only with care and attention. Sentence #2: Only with care and attention are relationships preserved.

In these cases, although the word orders are different, the sentences communicate the same message. In other cases, a slight change in word order alters a sentence’s meaning. For example:

Sentence #1: The swimmer passed the canoe. Sentence #2: The canoe passed the swimmer.

Morphology , discussed in more detail in Chapter 7, refers to the smallest meaningful parts from which words are created, including roots, suffixes, and prefixes (Carlisle 2000; Deacon and Kirby 2004). When a reader stumbles upon an unfamiliar word (e.g., unpredictable ), an awareness of how a particular prefix or suffix (e.g., un - and -able ) might change the meaning of a word or how two words with the same root may relate in meaning to each other (e.g., predict , predictable , unpredictable ) supports her ability to infer the unfamiliar word’s meaning. In fact, for both ELs and monolingual English speakers, there is a reciprocal relationship between morphological awareness and reading comprehension, and the strength of that relationship increases throughout elementary school (Carlisle 2000; Deacon and Kirby 2004; Goodwin et al. 2013; Kieffer, Biancarosa, and Mancilla-Martinez 2013; Nagy, Berninger, and Abbott 2006).

Pragmatics refers to an understanding of the social rules of communication (Snow and Uccelli 2009). So, for example, pragmatics involve how we talk when we have a particular purpose (e.g., persuading someone versus appeasing someone), how we communicate when we’re engaging with a particular audience (e.g., a family member versus an employer), and what we say when we find ourselves in a particular context (e.g., engaging in a casual conversation versus delivering a public speech). These often implicit social rules of communication differ across content areas or even text genres. Pragmatics play a role in reading comprehension because much of making meaning from text depends upon having the right ideas about the norms and conventions for interacting with others—to understand feelings, reactions, and dilemmas among characters or populations, for example, and even to make inferences and predictions. The reader has to be part of the social world of the text for effective comprehension.

Vocabulary knowledge must be fostered from early childhood through adolescence.

Finally, having the words to engage in dialogue—the vocabulary knowledge — is also a key part of oral language, not to mention comprehending and communicating using print (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan 2013; Ouellette 2006). Vocabulary knowledge, also referred to as semantic knowledge, involves understanding the meanings of words and phrases (aka receptive vocabulary ) and using those words and phrases to communicate effectively (aka expressive vocabulary ).

Notably, vocabulary knowledge exists in degrees, such that any learner has a particular “level” of knowledge of any given word (Beck, McKeown, and Kucan 2013). This begins with the word sounding familiar and moves toward the ability to use the word flexibly, even metaphorically, when speaking and writing. Vocabulary knowledge must be fostered from early childhood through adolescence. Deep vocabulary knowledge is often a source of difficulty for ELs, hindering their literacy development (August and Shanahan 2006).

If you would like to learn more about Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language , you can download a sample chapter here:

Nonie K. Lesaux, PhD , is the Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Lesaux leads a research program guided by the goal of increasing opportunities to learn for students from diverse linguistic, cultural, and economic backgrounds. Her research on reading development and instruction, and her work focused on using data to prevent reading difficulties, informs setting-level interventions, as well as public policy at the national and state level.

Julie Russ Harris, EdM , is the manager of the Language Diversity and Literacy Development Research Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  A former elementary school teacher and reading specialist in urban public schools, Harris’s work continues to be guided by the goal of increasing the quality of culturally diverse children’s learning environments.

Topics: Education Policy , EL , ELL , ESL , Reading , Writing , Building Language , Early Childhood Literacy Summit , Elementary , Julie Russ Harris , Nell K. Duke , Nonie K. Lesaux , Cultivating Knowledge, Building Language

Recent Posts

Popular posts, related posts, opening letter: a human who teaches, heinemann professional books about equity, systemic support for teacher mental health with dr. kris scardamalia.

© 2023 Heinemann, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Home Essay Examples Education Literacy

Oral Language Development

• Category Education
• Subcategory Learning
• Topic Literacy

Oral language relates to the communication mechanism of literacy which includes speaking and listening. Oral language is the system through which words are used to expresses knowledge, ideas, and feelings. Developing oral language will eventually mean developing the skills and knowledge that go into listening and speaking. All of which have a strong relationship between reading and writing comprehension. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s division of Heinemann (2019 ) explains oral language development as the communication competencies that teachers continuously build upon each child’s enrolment to the school. Oral language is developed in connection with beginning reading and writing because acquiring literacy is an interdependent process in which all language learning takes place according to the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt division of Heinemann (2019).

Stages of oral language development

Phonological skills- The phonological stage may be described as the prelinguistic stage because the child’s awareness of sound is being learned when there is some utterance within their languages such as the sounds of syllables and rhymes.

Our writers can write you a new plagiarism-free essay on any topic

Begin with sounds that are similar in pronunciation: vowels and consonant /ma/ /ca/ /pa/ called CV-syllable structure.

Later consonant clusters; and often the syllable-final consonant is often excluded for eg. “cat” becomes /ka/

When children use the phonological system of their native language, they must master the fine muscle coordination necessary to produce a rich variety of sounds. They will learn and understand that sounds have meaning and realize that their pronunciation must match the adult form. The adult phonological system is achieved only when children models to imitate and are provided with encouragement to continue their linguistic development.

• Pragmatics- Pragmatics refers to the realization of the social rules of communication (Snow and Uccelli 2009). This includes what we say, how we say it, and our body language.
• Syntax- Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.
• Morphological skills- Morphological awareness, which is an understanding of how words can be broken down into smaller units of meaning such as roots, prefixes, and suffixes, has emerged as an important contributor to word reading and comprehension skills.
• Vocabulary- Vocabulary/ vocabulary knowledge, also referred to as semantic knowledge, involves understanding the meanings of words and phrases (aka receptive vocabulary) and using those words and phrases to communicate effectively (aka expressive vocabulary).
• Semantics- The branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. The two main areas are logical semantics, concerned with matters such as sense and reference and presupposition and implication, and lexical semantics, concerned with the analysis of word meanings and relations between them.
• Lexicon- A lexicon is a list of words that belong to a particular language. A dictionary is a list of words and phrases that are (or were) in common usage, together with their definitions – so a dictionary is different from a lexicon because a lexicon is a simple list and doesn’t define the word.
• The Components of Oral Language via (readingrockets.org)

Oral language, the complex system that relates sounds to meanings, is made up of three components: phonological, semantic, and syntactic (Lindfors, 1987).

According to readingrockets.org, the phonological component involves the rules for combining sounds. The speakers of English, for example, it is known that English words can end, but not begin, with an -ng sound. The knowledge of these rules is not made aware to the general public, but our ability to understand and pronounce English words demonstrates that we do know a vast number of rules. Knowing that the semantic component is made up of morphemes, the smallest units of meaning that can be combined with each other to make up words(for example, paper + s are the two morphemes that make up papers). A dictionary contains the semantic component of a language, but also what words and meanings are important to the speakers of the language also stated by readingrocket.org.

Readingrocket.org highlights the syntactic component consists of the rules that enable us to combine morphemes into sentences. As soon as a child uses two morphemes together, as in ‘more cracker,’ she is using a syntactic rule about how morphemes are combined to convey meaning. Like rules being made up of the other components, syntactic rules become increasingly complex as the child develops. When combining two morphemes, the child will go on to combine words with suffixes or inflections (-s or -ing, as in papers and eating) and eventually creates questions, statements, commands, etc. He/she also learns to combine two ideas into one complex sentence.

Because speakers of the English language are constantly used, these three components of language together, usually in social situations. Some language experts would add a fourth component: pragmatics, which deals with rules of language use.

The pragmatic rules are put in place as parts of our communicative competence, our ability to speak appropriately in different situations, for example, in a conversational way at home and in a more formal way at a job interview. Young children today are required to learn the ways of speaking in the daycare center or school where, for example, teachers often ask rhetorical questions. Knowing the pragmatic rules is as important as learning the rules of the other components of language since people are perceived and judged based on both what they say and when they say it.

Oral language is one of many of the foundational building blocks of learning. Try these simple strategies with your students, and give them the boost in confidence they need for future academic and social success.

List of strategies that focus on Oral Language instruction (Adapted from Tompkins{2009})

• Anticipation Guides
• Choral Reading
• Grand Conversations
• Interactive Read Aloud
• Language Experience Approach
• Questioning the Author
• Reciprocal Questioning
• Story Retelling

We have 98 writers available online to start working on your essay just NOW!

Related Topics

Related essays.

By clicking "Send essay" you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

By clicking "Receive essay" you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

We can edit this one and make it plagiarism-free in no time

We use cookies to give you the best experience possible. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

Oral Language Techniques

Oral language Techniques: Use these powerful and proven methods to enhance your child's oral language development.

Effective language intervention requires us to provide instructions to students that are structured and that provoke thought.

Part of our role, as teachers of oral language is for students to be able to understand the form and function of the target intervention and use it in their everyday communication. The goal is for the children to learn the skills targeted by the oral language techniques and thus become better communicators.

This essay features proven and effective oral language techniques that can be used to scaffold targeted language behaviour in young children.

How to Parallel Talk

With these oral language techniques we talk about the child’s actions rather than our own. It’s called parallel talk because we comment and remark upon the actions of the child as they participate in an activity. For instance, Clinician: ‘You put your yellow bike at the start. It’s your turn. Wow, you rolled a six! You’ve counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Fantastic! Now you’re moving six spaces with your yellow bike,’ etc.

How to Use Imitations

In imitations we simply repeat what the child has said. By repeating the child’s utterances we increase the amount of times the child produces lexical, syntax and morphological forms and there are more opportunities for feedback. If the student repeats out feedback we have the opportunity to provide other forms of oral language techniques .

How to Use Expansions

When we expand a child’s utterance we lend grammatical and syntactical details to it that supports the child’s words so that they more resemble adult language forms. For example, if a child moves a motorbike several spaces and says, Child: ‘bike go fast,’ we can expand the utterance with, Clinician: ‘Yes, the bike goes fast. The bike is going fast,’ etc.

How to Use Extensions

We can assist children to expand the length of their sentences by using extensions. Extensions both acknowledge the utterance of the child and add extra information to it. Extensions act as a little push to prompt the child to attempt more complex forms of language. In our previous example, Child: ‘bike go fast,’ we can extend this utterance, Clinician : ‘The bike goes fast along the track. Your bike is very fast and its colour is red. It is a red bike that goes very fast. brrrmmm’... etc.

How to Use Immersion

The focus of these oral language techniques is to provide a high number of the target in different but related form while interacting in a game, reading a book or any other language activity. The child does not necessarily have to express the target form, but it's always an advantage if they do. By the clinician immersing the child in targeted language where the target form is repeatedly provided, it is anticipated that the child will be enticed to attempt the new form in his/her own communication.

For example, the clinician wishes to teach the concepts fast/slow while playing a board game which features motorbikes. Clinician: ‘Let’s start here. You go first.' (child rolls dice). 'That’s five.' (child moves playing piece five spaces.) The clinician then rolls a four. Clinician: ‘Wow, look how fast you are going? Your bike is fast. My bike is not as fast as your bike. My bike is slow. You rolled a five. I only rolled a four. So my bike is slower. Your bike is faster than my slow bike. Can you point to the slow bike?’ No, that’s your bike. Your bike is fast. It’s faster than my bike. My bike is slow. Try again. Point to the slow bike.’

Cloze Procedures

Cloze procedures are great oral language techniques that use the context of a situation to assist the child to identify a word they may find difficult to say, or have yet to attempt. The child is effectively prompted to fill in the blank or gap in a sentence or phrase. For instance, ‘My bike is green. Your bike is y….’ The clinician produces only the first phoneme. The child is prompted to say yellow . Cloze procedures work best in tandem with immersion techniques, where a child has repeatedly heard the target word in context before attempting to produce the target word themselves.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is used to reword text or a student’s statement. It can be used to define a difficult word or reword a complex sentence into shorter simpler sentences.

Example: Text – ‘The sun shone for a moment, but its warming rays were quickly engulfed by the angry and bruised sky.’

Clinician: ‘It sounds like the sun shone through the clouds. So while it was able to shine it provided some warmth. It didn’t last very long though. The angry and stormy sky enveloped the sun’s rays again.’

Oral Language Techniques -Questioning

Avoid yes/no questions , as they only require a simple response. The best questions are what/, why, how, who questions. What/why questions tend to be open–ended and require the student to provide more information with more detail. Good questioning encourages expressive language use. For example, Clinician , ‘Did the girl save the bird?,' can be followed by “Why did the girl save the bird, how did she save the bird,’ etc.

Choice and contrast questions are an excellent way of giving the student choices to think about. For example, Clinician , ‘Why did the frog follow the boy back home?’ No response from child. ‘Was the frog lonely or was he just curious?’

Question to the student’s response. After you have asked a question and received a response, use the student’s response to probe for more information. This does require a bit of practice but can produce good results. For example, Child, ‘The man is climbing a ladder to the roof.’ Clinician , ‘Yes he is. I wonder what he will find on the roof. Is there anything that can go wrong when he gets to the top of the roof?’

G ood questions require us to ask for increasingly more abstract responses from a student so that they may think of a statement or written passage in more complex ways that requires more involved and varied responses. The three main types of questions we use when prompting student thinking are literal, interpretive and inference questions. Inference questions in particular require the student to go beyond surface details in a story or passage to find the meaning.

Example passage from text: ‘The storm tossed the tiny boat on the seas as if it were a matchstick. The sun shone for a moment, but its warming rays were quickly engulfed by the angry and bruised sky.’

Literal Question: A question that has a specific answer. ‘What happened to the warming rays of the sun?’

Interpretation Question: A question which asks about something that is implied. ‘What would a bruised and angry sky look like?

Inference Question: A question that does not rely on textual information. ‘Will the boat and its crew survive the fierce storm?’

DeKemel, K.P. (2003) Intervention in Language Arts: A Practical Guide for Speech-Language Pathologists. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Paul, R. (2007) Language Disorders from Infancy through Adolescence. Assessment and Intervention. Mosby

Wallach, G.P. (2008) Language Intervention for School-Age Students: Setting Goals for Academic Success. Mosby Elsevier

Updated 09/12

Return from Oral Language Techniques to Home Page

• Language Blog

Science of Learning

• Why your child cannot read
• Science of learning and teaching
• What is the Science of Reading?
• Rosenshine Principles for Classroom Practice

Language Intervention

• Inference Activities 2nd Edition
• Sentence Grammar Program
• Free Board Games
• WM Challenges
• WM Activities
• Board Games
• Language Therapy
• Language eBook
• Language program
• Inferencing
• Language skills
• Shared Reading
• Sentence Structure
• Sentence Builder
• Sentence Creator
• Free Activities
• Oral Language Program
• Best Resources

Information about Language

• Active Listening
• What is language?
• Language Disorder
• Working Memory
• Tips for Parents
• Advanced Lang
• Speech Intervention
• The Lateral S
• Minimal Pairs Theory
• Multiple Op
• What is Speech?
• Speech Errors
• Speech Structures
• Simple View of Reading
• Synthetic Phonics Resources
• Sounds to Graph
• Phonol Intervention
• Inference Program
• Inference-Reading
• Vocab Activities
• Vocabulary Comp
• Comprehension
• Dyslexia Defined
• Phonological A

Social Language

• Asperger's Syn
• Pragmatic lang
• Figurative lang

Book Analysis

Best books information.

• Book Activities
• Benefits...
• 1st Grade Books
• 3rd Grade Books
• 6th Grade Books

Website Information

• Research Articles
• Privacy Policy

Information for Teachers and Speechies

• Teacher Tips
• Classroom lang
• Language Techniques
• Crafting Connections
• Parent Survey
• Teaching Literacy
• Secondary School
• Language literacy Inter
• Reading Difficulties
• Writing Tips

14 Ways to Improve Your Students’ Oral Language Skills

UPDATED: 3/23/22

Oral language is one of the most important skills your students can master—both for social and academic success. Learners use this skill throughout the day to process and deliver instructions, make requests, ask questions, receive new information, and interact with peers.

As a teacher, there’s a lot you can do during your everyday lessons to support the development of strong oral language skills in your students. Today’s post, excerpted and adapted from Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, OWL LD, and Dyscalculia , by Berninger & Wolf, gives you 14 ideas for supporting oral language development in your students who are verbal. These teaching strategies can help students with specific language disabilities (including dyslexia), and they can boost the language skills of your other learners, too. Try these and see which ones work best for your students!

Encourage conversation.

Every social interaction gives students a new opportunity to practice language. Some of your students might need a little guidance from you to engage in conversations, so spark interactions whenever you can. Ask questions, rephrase the student’s answers, and give prompts that encourage oral conversations to continue.

Model syntactic structure.

Your students may not use complete oral syntax in informal speech, but encourage them to do so when they’re in the classroom. When a student uses fragmented syntax, model complete syntax back to them. This builds oral language skills and gives students practice in a skill necessary for mastering written language.

Maintain eye contact.

Engage in eye contact with students during instruction and encourage them to do the same. Maintaining eye contact will help learners gauge their audi­ence’s attention and adjust their language, their volume, or the organization of their speech. This will help them be better under­stood, communicate more clearly, and successfully interpret nonverbal cues about their clarity.

Remind students to speak loudly and articulate clearly.

Ask students to feel the muscles used for speech while they’re talk­ing and monitor their volume and articulation. Remind them that clear and loud-enough speech is essential for holding the attention of the group and communicating their information and opinions effectively.

Have students summarize heard information.

Encourage students to verbally summarize or otherwise discuss the information they hear. This should begin in kindergarten and continue with increasingly difficult questions as students grow older. Teach students to ask for clarification when they don’t understand something, and emphasize that they can ask you directly or query fellow students.

Model and guide sentence construction.

Some students have trouble getting started with the wording of a sentence. Saying the beginning word or phrase for the student can help the student structure their response. Give students time for thinking and formulating an oral or written response. Students’ explicit experience in both producing their own oral language and processing others’ language will help facilitate their comprehension of reading material.

Explain the subtleties of tone.

Your students have probably experienced playground arguments related to tone; misunderstandings are common when students are using loud outdoor voices. Remind your students how tone of voice—which includes pitch, volume, speed, and rhythm—can change the meaning of what a speaker says. Often, it’s not what they say, it’s how they say it that can lead to misunderstanding of motives and attitudes. Ask your students to be mindful of tone when they’re trying to get a message across, and adjust their volume and pitch accordingly.

Attend to listening skills.

Ensure that your students are listening by using consistent cues to get their attention. You might use a phrase like “It’s listening time” to give students a reminder. Some students might also benefit from written reminders posted prominently on your wall.

Incorporate a “question of the day.”

During each school day’s opening activities, ask a question to encourage talk. (You can even write one on the board so your students can read it and start thinking about their answer as soon as they come in.) Start with simple one-part questions like “What is your favorite animal?” If a student doesn’t answer in a complete sentence, model a complete sentence and ask the student to repeat your model. Once your students are successfully answering these simple questions in com­plete sentences, move to two-part questions that require more complex answers: “What is your favorite animal? Why?”

Compile a class booklet of students’ phrases.

Give your students a sentence to finish, such as “When my dog got lost I looked…” Have each student contribute a prepositional phrase to com­plete the sentence (e.g., at the grocery store, in the park, under the bed ). Then have your students create a class booklet by writing and illustrating their phrases. When all the phrase pages are assembled into a booklet, students can practice reading the very long sentence with all the places they looked for the dog. Encourage them to come up with a conclusion to the story.

Teach concept words.

Some students may have difficulty with abstract concepts such as before, after, or following, and with sequences such as days of the week or months of the year. To help students learn and retain these concepts, you may need to present and review them many times and in multiple ways. For example:

• You might ask stu­dents to identify which holiday comes in each month and then review holidays for other months in sequence: “Groundhog Day is in February. What holiday is in March? In April?”
• Have students identify the month before or after a given month. “May is before June and after April.” “May is between April and June.”

Question to boost comprehension.

Asking questions before and after a reading assignment not only helps sharpen oral language skills, it also helps students think about what they’re read­ing and absorb information from the words. You might try the following strategies to facilitate reading comprehension:

• If there’s an introduction to the story or passage, ask students to read it and answer purpose-setting questions: “Where does the story begin? “What kind of story or article is this? Why do you think so?”
• Ask students to predict outcomes: “What will happen? How do you know?”
• After the reading, ask students to reveal whether their predictions were correct and identify where the ending or conclusion begins.
• Have students summarize the passage: “Who were the characters?” “What was the plot?” “What was the outcome?” “What was the main idea?” “What were the supporting details?”

Teach for oral reading fluency.

Oral reading fluency refers to how rapidly, smoothly, effortlessly, and automatically students read text. The goal is accurate and fluid reading with adequate speed, appropriate phrasing, and correct intonation. Here are a few activities that aid fluency:

• Sentence completion: Read a phrase and signal for a student to complete the sentence. Then read another phrase and signal another student to complete the next sentence. This activity provides good modeling of rhythm and inflection and builds reading group skills.
• Round-robin repeated reading: Each student reads a sentence, paragraph, or page, and then the next student gets a turn. Prompt each student to read with rhythm and fluency.
• Partner reading: Paired readers choose a quiet, cozy spot to practice reading to one another. This activity provides additional practice after reading in small groups.
• Monitored reading: Ask an aide or parent volunteer to listen to a student’s oral reading and watch for good phrasing and rhythm.
• Repeated reading: Parents may assist with repeated reading at home by asking students to read orally the same 150- to 200-word passage repeatedly over several days. Students do not have to spend more than 10 minutes rereading each night.

Never assume students understood your instructional talk.

Be aware of the potential disconnect between what you say and what your students hear. Go over your message and present it in multiple ways to be sure all students understand.

Oral language is one of the foundational building blocks of learning. Try the suggestions in today’s post with your students, and give them the boost they need for future academic and social success.

GET THE BOOK

By Virginia W. Berninger, Ph.D., & Beverly J. Wolf, M.Ed.

Learn how to provide effective instruction for students with learning disabilities while meeting the needs of all students! The first teacher training text to cover all four learning disabilities that require differentiated instruction, this book prepares educators to deliver explicit and engaging instruction customized to the needs of their students. Critical insights from diverse fields blend with lessons learned from actual teaching experience.

MORE RESOURCES ON LANGUAGE SKILLS

The most comprehensive text available on multisensory teaching, this book prepares today’s educators to use specific evidence-based approaches that improve struggling students’ language skills and academic outcomes in elementary through high school.

Discover 45 of today’s best strategies for teaching young dual language learners and supporting their families. Includes practical guidance on how to apply each strategy in real-world classrooms!

Early identification is the first step to helping children with language delays improve their skills. Find the children who might need help with QUILS, a one-of-a-kind tool that helps you evaluate whether children are making language progress appropriate for their age group.

Stay up to date on the latest posts, news, strategies, and more!

• Communication & Language
• Special Education

More posts like this

TILLS Tips: Using TILLS with Students Who Have Special Needs

FREE DOWNLOAD: Updated TILLS Sampler

QUILS and QUILS: ES: Your Key to Catching Language Delays Early

Write a comment.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Angela Gutierrez Blakeslee says

I enjoyed reading this. I appreciate the simple changes one can make to support learning and acquisition of a new language. Many thanks.

Mehdi Saghafi says

Hi, I really found this post very helpful for one of my students. Thanks for sharing. Mehdi

jlillis says

So glad you found it useful! Thank you for reading.

D. INDIRA PRIYA says

Much expressive, more informative, most useful to all the teaching faculty. Thank alot.

Susan B. Park says

Very useful to my English class, thank you very much.

Post a Comment

ENCYCLOPEDIC ENTRY

Oral language.

Comprised of syntax, pragmatics, morphology, and phonology, oral language is how we verbally communicate with one another.

Social Studies, Anthropology, World History, English Language Arts

Office Workers Talking

While all languages are built on the concepts of syntax, pragmatics, morphology, and phonology, they are all based on words.

Photograph by gradyreese

Oral communication is more than just speech. It involves expressing ideas, feelings, information, and other things that employ the voice, like poetry or music, verbally . Because so much of human life is dominated by speech and verbal communication , it would be difficult to fully express oneself without an oral language . Language involves words, their pronunciations, and the various ways of combining them to communicate . The building blocks of an oral language are the words people speak. Children begin learning to speak extremely early in life. They begin by babbling, an attempt to mimic the speech they hear from older people. As they get older, they develop more language skills and start forming sentences. They continue building their vocabularies throughout their lives. Vocabulary is just one of the components of oral language . Other components include syntax , pragmatics , morphology , and phonology . Syntax refers to how words are arranged into sentences. How people use oral language to communicate is known as pragmatics . Morphology refers to how words are structured and formed in different languages . The study of the sound of speech is called phonology . The history of oral language as a whole is difficult to trace to its beginning, however, there is a wealth of information on the histories of specific languages . The group of languages known as Indo-European languages , which account for almost half of the languages spoken throughout the world today, likely originated in Europe and Asia. Indo-European languages are thought to stem from a single language , which nomads spoke thousands of years ago. Recent evidence has shown that the origin of oral language may go back even further. The discovery of a Neanderthal hyoid bone in 1989, as well as the FOXP2 gene—thought to be essential for spoken language —in Neanderthal DNA, is evidence that Neanderthals may have communicated with speech sounds, possibly even language . Although many animal species make sounds—ones that may even sound like speech­—to communicate , oral language is unique to humans, as far as we know. It involves using a finite set of words and rules in an infinite amount of comprehensible combinations. Today, the people of the world speak over 7,000 different languages . Through oral language , people learn to understand the meanings of words, to read, and, of course, to express themselves. As the world changes, oral language changes along with it to reflect the needs, ideas, and evolution of the human race.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Production Managers

Program specialists, last updated.

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

• Career Center
• Digital Events

ILA Digital Events

• In-Person Events
• Chapters & Affiliates
• Awards & Recognition
• Write or Review for ILA
• Volunteer & Lead
• Children's Rights to Read

Position Statements

• Literacy Glossary

Literacy Today Magazine

• Literacy Now Blog
• Resource Collections
• Resources by Topic
• School-Based Solutions
• Member Benefits
• Membership Types
• My Account & Profile
• Our Mission
• Our Leadership
• Press & Media
• Get Resources >
• Resources by Topic >

Oral Language

Oral language development lays the foundation for both reading and writing, making it an integral part of literacy development throughout our lives. The following resources detail those links and provide ideas for how to create classrooms that nurture oral language across grade levels.

Literacy Today : Oral Language & Literacy

ILA Intensive: Literacy and Content Instruction That Supports Language Development

Literacy Leadership Brief: Second-Language Learners' Vocabulary and Oral Language Development

Additional Resources on Oral Language

• Embracing Oral Traditions and Interdisciplinary and Inclusive Literature in the Early Literacy Classroom Kenneth Kunz and Kia Brown-Dudley VIDEO
• Reading E-books as Support for Language and Early Literacy Ofra Korat INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE (open access)
• Shared Book Reading in Preschools Dorit Aram INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE (member resource)
• The Power and Promise of Read-Alouds and Independent Reading Molly Ness BRIEF
• Reading Fluently Does Not Mean Reading Fast Jan Hasbrouck and Deborah R. Glaser BRIEF
• Scaffolding Self-Correction During Oral Reading Tracy Johnson, Clara Mikita, Emily Rodgers, and Jerome V. D’Agostino TEACHING TIP | The Reading Teacher (paid access)
• Classroom-Based Oral Storytelling: Reading, Writing, and Social Benefits Trina D. Spencer and Chelsea Pierce TEACHING AND LEARNING GUIDE | The Reading Teacher (open access)
• Supporting Emergent Writing With Oral Storytelling Strategies Katie Schrodt, Erin FitzPatrick, and Janna McClain TEACHING AND LEARNING GUIDE | The Reading Teacher (paid access)
• Oral Language Intervention in Norwegian Schools Serving Young Language-Minority Learners: A Randomized Trial Mia C. Heller, Arne Lervåg, and Vibeke Grøver ARTICLE | Reading Research Quarterly (paid access)
• Oral Reading Fluency of College Graduates: Toward a Deeper Understanding of College Ready Fluency Timothy Rasinski, Abbey Galeza, Lauren Vogel, Brittany Viton, Heather Rundo, Emma Royan, Randa Nemer Shaheen, Monica Bartholomew, Chotika Kaewkaemket, Faida Stokes, Chase Young, and David Paige ARTICLE | Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (open access)
• Powerful Early Teaching During Oral Reading Kimberly Anderson, Patricia L. Scharer, and Jamie Lipp ARTICLE | Literacy Today (member magazine)
• Building Oral Reading Resiliency Justin Stygles BLOG POST | Literacy Now

More to Explore

ILA Resource Collections

The Reading Teacher

Reading Research Quarterly

ILA Membership

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

Instructional Practices

Briefs and Advisories

• For Network Leaders
• For Advertisers
• Privacy & Security
• Terms of Use

Effective speaking and listening instruction

The foundational role that oral language plays in learning to read and write has long been recognised (Castles et al., 2018; Dougherty, 2014; Lervag et al., 2018). As has t he relationship between oral language ability and academic success (Hill, 2012; Resnick and Snow, 2009).  In order to maximise students’ literacy learning, teachers need to have solid understandings about oral language and its potential as an educative tool.

Oral language involves expressive and receptive skills.

Expressive language encompasses the words and actions used to convey meaning, including tone, volume, pauses and inflections.

Receptive language is the understanding of language expressed by others. Expressive and receptive oral language are often referred to as ‘speaking and listening’.

The curriculum

The Victorian Curriculum F - 10 recognises the importance of oral language as a communicative process, with speaking and listening receiving prominence in the English curriculum, alongside reading, viewing and writing. Speaking and listening in the classroom serves both a social and educative purpose as speaking and listening is a key aspect of forming relationships, as well as being a mode through which learning occurs. (Vygotsky, 1978).

Since speaking and listening is important for both social connection and learning oral language teaching should be planned for across the curriculum and explicitly taught.

The Victorian English curriculum, speaking and listening provides guidelines about what should be taught. The other modes of the English curriculum (reading and viwgin and writing), as well as other other curriculum learnign areas, all have knowledge, actions and skill development mediated by speaking and listening. At each level of the curriculum and across all disciplines, spoken texts are included with written and multimodal texts, to be explored, analysed and created.

The Victorian Curriculum F – 10 provides the following account of speaking and listening:

'Speaking and Listening refers to the various formal and informal ways oral language is used to convey and receive meaning. It involves the development and demonstration of knowledge about the appropriate oral language for particular audiences and occasions, including body language and voice. It also involves the development of active-listening strategies and an understanding of the conventions of different spoken texts.' 

In addition by the end of foundation students are expected to be able to identify rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words' and 'identify and use rhyme, letter patterns and sounds in words'.

Phonological awareness

The Victorian curriculum presents speaking and listening as a means of consolidating phonological awareness through language in use as well as explicit teaching. Phonological awareness develops as children learn abouth the sounds of language, through speaking and listening. For children who speak English as a second or additional language, hearing the sounds of English and having the opportunities to use these sounds is vital for their phonological development. Rhymes, songs and chants can be used to focus on phonological awareness. Activities that encourage listening, such as clapping syllables in words, identifying if two spoken words rhyme and call and respond chants, all support the development of an individual student's phonological awareness. Developmnet of phonological awareness is importnant for effective speaking and listening comprehension as well as learning to read and write. Teachers can help students make links between the sounds they hear and speak, and the written word. Making these links draws together the relationship between spolen and written language.

Functions of Language

The Victorian curriculum also presents speaking and lsitening as a means of addressing specific purposes. The purposes for which oral language is used are both practical and linguistic. Halliday presented these purposes as linguistic functions which provide teachers with a useful way to examine speaking and listening (see table below). Teachers can use Halliday's (2007) functions of language to audit the types of oral language interactions they are planning for their students.

Halliday, 2007.

The Victorian curriculum for speaking and listening also has a strong focus on making explicit how oral language is used in different contexts for expressing ideas and opinions; interacting with others and presenting formal oral presentations.

Speaking and listening, like writing, is used in formal and informal ways. The degree of formality used in an oral language interaction is dependent upon the subject matter to be discussed, the relationship between the participants and the way the interaction will occur (for example, face to face, phone conversation, recorded message, video etc.).

Speakers make choices about degrees of formality. It is helpful to think of oral language as moving along a continuum from informal utterances to talk that is more formal and extended.  As the talk moves along the continuum to more formal structures, these more and more resemble written, literary language. Ultimately a speaker makes decisions about the appropriate register to adopt, with a mindfulness of purpose and audience.

For example, an exchange between two friends discussing a movie might be more informal spoken (see text A), while a movie review given as a presentation might be more formal and closer to written-text (see text B).

Sam:  Hey, I loved that movie. It was awesome. So scary yeah? Pat: Yeah, I was shaking in my boots.

Sam: The final of the Harry Potter series has been made into a movie The Deathly Hallows. The movie’s rating suggests it is not appropriate for children under 12. A number of scenes in The Deathly Hallows could frighten young viewers.

Many speaking and listening situations, at home and school, involve the students in language set in the ‘here and now’, for example, playing a number game, engaging in a class art activity or organising the distribution of class resources.

These situations involve talk about the things that are seen and experienced by everyone present. Actions that occur in these social situations are accompanied by language. The language in these situations can be described as contextualised, that is, the language is bound to the situation or action. As such, sentences are usually brief, there is a greater use of pronouns, and less description.

A great deal of school language is decontextualised language. Decontextualised language helps the speaker tell others about people, objects, actions or ideas that are not present. Decontextualized language includes “opportunities for extended discourse in the form of explanations, personal narratives, creating imaginary worlds, and conveying information” (Raban, 2014, p. 9).

In these situations, the speaker uses language as the main resource for helping the listener make meaning. Decontextualised language is more difficult for students to use and understand. Students may need scaffolds to assist their meaning making, for example, picture clues, modelling of language structures and opportunities to recycle language.

Decontextualised language is the language of learning and reflection. Teachers can help students move towards decontextualised language, by providing experiences which are later recounted, described and reflected upon.

For information on Speaking and listening and EAL/D students, see: Speaking and listening and EAL/D students

Links to the Victorian Curriculum - English

• Listen to and respond orally to texts and to the communication of others in informal and structured classroom situations using interaction skills, including listening, while others speak ( VCELY174 )
• Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose, context and cultural background ( VCELA234 )
• Understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality in social situations ( VCELA271 )
• Understand how texts vary in purpose, structure and topic as well as the degree of formality ( VCELA309 )
• Understand that strategies for interaction become more complex and demanding as levels of formality and social distance increase ( VCELA363 )

Links to the Victorian Curriculum - English as an Additional Language (EAL) 

See the Communication and Cultural and Plurilingual Awareness strands under Speaking and Listening in the EAL curriculum . 

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 19 (1), 5-51.

Dougherty, C. (2014). Starting off strong: the importance of early learning, American Educator. 18 (2), 14-18.

Halliday, M.A.K (2007). Language and Education: Volume 9. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Lervåg, A., Hulme, C., & Melby‐Lervåg, M. (2018). Unpicking the developmental relationship between oral language skills and reading comprehension: It's simple, but complex. Child development , 89 (5), 1821-1838.

Raban, B. (2014). Talk to think, learn, and teach. Journal of Reading Recovery. Spring, 2014

Resnick, L.B., & Snow, C.E. (2009). Speaking and listening for preschool through third grade. Newark, DE: New Standards, International Reading Association.

Our website uses a free tool to translate into other languages. This tool is a guide and may not be accurate. For more, see: Information in your language

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

13.1 Oral versus Written Language

Learning objectives.

• Understand the importance of language.
• Explain the difference between denotative and connotative definitions.
• Understand how denotative and connotative definitions can lead to misunderstandings.
• Differentiate between oral and written language.

Clemsonunivlibrary – group meeting – CC BY-NC 2.0.

When we use the word “language,” we are referring to the words you choose to use in your speech—so by definition, our focus is on spoken language. Spoken language has always existed prior to written language. Wrench, McCroskey, and Richmond suggested that if you think about the human history of language as a twelve-inch ruler, written language or recorded language has only existed for the “last quarter of an inch” (Wrench, et al., 2008). Furthermore, of the more than six thousand languages that are spoken around the world today, only a minority of them actually use a written alphabet (Lewis, 2009). To help us understand the importance of language, we will first look at the basic functions of language and then delve into the differences between oral and written language.

Basic Functions of Language

Language is any formal system of gestures, signs, sounds, and symbols used or conceived as a means of communicating thought. As mentioned above, there are over six thousand language schemes currently in use around the world. The language spoken by the greatest number of people on the planet is Mandarin; other widely spoken languages are English, Spanish, and Arabic (Lewis, 2009). Language is ultimately important because it is the primary means through which humans have the ability to communicate and interact with one another. Some linguists go so far as to suggest that the acquisition of language skills is the primary advancement that enabled our prehistoric ancestors to flourish and succeed over other hominid species (Mayell, 2003).

In today’s world, effective use of language helps us in our interpersonal relationships at home and at work. Using language effectively also will improve your ability to be an effective public speaker. Because language is an important aspect of public speaking that many students don’t spend enough time developing, we encourage you to take advantage of this chapter.

One of the first components necessary for understanding language is to understand how we assign meaning to words. Words consist of sounds (oral) and shapes (written) that have agreed-upon meanings based in concepts, ideas, and memories. When we write the word “blue,” we may be referring to a portion of the visual spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 440–490 nanometers. You could also say that the color in question is an equal mixture of both red and green light. While both of these are technically correct ways to interpret the word “blue,” we’re pretty sure that neither of these definitions is how you thought about the word. When hearing the word “blue,” you may have thought of your favorite color, the color of the sky on a spring day, or the color of a really ugly car you saw in the parking lot. When people think about language, there are two different types of meanings that people must be aware of: denotative and connotative.

Denotative Meaning

Denotative meaning is the specific meaning associated with a word. We sometimes refer to denotative meanings as dictionary definitions. The definitions provided above for the word “blue” are examples of definitions that might be found in a dictionary. The first dictionary was written by Robert Cawdry in 1604 and was called Table Alphabeticall . This dictionary of the English language consisted of three thousand commonly spoken English words. Today, the Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 200,000 words (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Conotative Meaning

Connotative meaning is the idea suggested by or associated with a word. In addition to the examples above, the word “blue” can evoke many other ideas:

• State of depression (feeling blue)
• Indication of winning (a blue ribbon)
• Side during the Civil War (blues vs. grays)
• Sudden event (out of the blue)

We also associate the color blue with the sky and the ocean. Maybe your school’s colors or those of your archrival include blue. There are also various forms of blue: aquamarine, baby blue, navy blue, royal blue, and so on.

Some miscommunication can occur over denotative meanings of words. For example, one of the authors of this book recently received a flyer for a tennis center open house. The expressed goal was to introduce children to the game of tennis. At the bottom of the flyer, people were encouraged to bring their own racquets if they had them but that “a limited number of racquets will be available.” It turned out that the denotative meaning of the final phrase was interpreted in multiple ways: some parents attending the event perceived it to mean that loaner racquets would be available for use during the open house event, but the people running the open house intended it to mean that parents could purchase racquets onsite. The confusion over denotative meaning probably hurt the tennis center, as some parents left the event feeling they had been misled by the flyer.

Although denotatively based misunderstanding such as this one do happen, the majority of communication problems involving language occur because of differing connotative meanings. You may be trying to persuade your audience to support public funding for a new professional football stadium in your city, but if mentioning the team’s or owner’s name creates negative connotations in the minds of audience members, you will not be very persuasive. The potential for misunderstanding based in connotative meaning is an additional reason why audience analysis, discussed earlier in this book, is critically important. By conducting effective audience analysis, you can know in advance how your audience might respond to the connotations of the words and ideas you present. Connotative meanings can not only differ between individuals interacting at the same time but also differ greatly across time periods and cultures. Ultimately, speakers should attempt to have a working knowledge of how their audiences could potentially interpret words and ideas to minimize the chance of miscommunication.

Twelve Ways Oral and Written Language Differ

A second important aspect to understand about language is that oral language (used in public speaking) and written language (used for texts) does not function the same way. Try a brief experiment. Take a textbook, maybe even this one, and read it out loud. When the text is read aloud, does it sound conversational? Probably not. Public speaking, on the other hand, should sound like a conversation. McCroskey, Wrench, and Richmond highlighted the following twelve differences that exist between oral and written language:

• Oral language has a smaller variety of words.
• Oral language has words with fewer syllables.
• Oral language has shorter sentences.
• Oral language has more self-reference words ( I , me , mine ).
• Oral language has fewer quantifying terms or precise numerical words.
• Oral language has more pseudoquantifying terms ( many , few , some ).
• Oral language has more extreme and superlative words ( none , all , every , always , never ).
• Oral language has more qualifying statements (clauses beginning with unless and except ).
• Oral language has more repetition of words and syllables.
• Oral language uses more contractions.
• Oral language has more interjections (“Wow!,” “Really?,” “No!,” “You’re kidding!”).
• Oral language has more colloquial and nonstandard words (McCroskey, et al., 2003).

These differences exist primarily because people listen to and read information differently. First, when you read information, if you don’t grasp content the first time, you have the ability to reread a section. When we are listening to information, we do not have the ability to “rewind” life and relisten to the information. Second, when you read information, if you do not understand a concept, you can look up the concept in a dictionary or online and gain the knowledge easily. However, we do not always have the ability to walk around with the Internet and look up concepts we don’t understand. Therefore, oral communication should be simple enough to be easily understood in the moment by a specific audience, without additional study or information.

Key Takeaways

• Language is important in every aspect of our lives because it allows people to communicate in a manner that enables the sharing of common ideas.
• Denotative definitions are the agreed-upon meanings of words that are often found in dictionaries, whereas connotative definitions involve individual perceptions of words.
• Misunderstandings commonly occur when the source of a message intends one denotative or connotative meaning and the receiver of the message applies a different denotative or connotative meaning to the same word or words.
• Oral language is designed to be listened to and to sound conversational, which means that word choice must be simpler, more informal, and more repetitive. Written language uses a larger vocabulary and is more formal.
• Find a magazine article and examine its language choices. Which uses of language could be misunderstood as a result of a reader’s connotative application of meaning?
• Think of a situation in your own life where denotative or connotative meanings led to a conflict. Why do you think you and the other person had different associations of meaning?
• Read a short newspaper article. Take that written article and translate it into language that would be orally appropriate. What changes did you make to adjust the newspaper article from written to oral language? Orally present the revised article to a classmate or friend. Were you successful in adapting your language to oral style?

Lewis, M. P. (2009). Ethnologue (16th ed.). Retrieved from http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/distribution.asp?by=size .

Mayell, H. (2003, February). When did “modern” behavior emerge in humans? National Geographic News . Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/02/0220_030220_humanorigins2.html .

McCroskey, J. C., Wrench, J. S., & Richmond, V. P. (2003). Principles of public speaking . Indianapolis, IN: The College Network.

Oxford University Press. (2011). How many words are there in the English language? Retrieved from http://oxforddictionaries.com/page/howmanywords

Wrench, J. S., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2008). Human communication in everyday life: Explanations and applications . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, p. 304.

Stand up, Speak out Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book