Developing Language And Communication Skills Through Effective Small Group Work

First published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Research shows that poor language and communication skills have a profound effect on the life chances of children and young people. This highly practical book will enable you to give children in your care the help they need to build their language skills at the earliest point in their development. Based on the author's highly regarded SPIRALS language development programme, the book provides 30 tried and tested sessions to help develop children's early speech, language and communication. Each language concept is introduced one at a time and builds on the most frequently used words by infants and uses music, repetition and simple meaningful gestures and signing to reinforce children's understanding.

This book offers an inclusive approach to developing children's language and thinking skills and their emotional literacy. By running small group sessions for children who are vulnerable in these areas, you can make a difference. Children are encouraged to take small steps and build up their confidence gradually, with the aim being to allow them to catch up and keep pace with their peers. The sessions are very practical, involving games and activities. They are graded to cover important areas of language development and expansion, early pragmatic skills, listening skills, social skills, critical thinking skills, self-esteem and self-confidence. Straightforward directions are given for each individual session, which can be followed by the class teacher and classroom support staff. Teachers, Teaching Assistants and Speech and Language Therapists will find this book easily accessible.

"Developing Baseline Communication Skills" is a practical resource designed to fit with the baseline assessments that are now part of the national curriculum in schools. It contains a programme of games and activities aimed at fostering personal and social development and promoting language and early literacy skills. Teachers often express concern about the many children who enter reception classes lacking the listening, understanding and speaking skills necessary to make a successful start to their school years. This resource seeks to address some of these problems by offering: Games and activities suitable for four to five-year olds in nursery education, playgroups, reception classes and those attending speech language therapy clinics. These are appropriate for both mainstream and special schools. There are two hundred games and activities, graded into level of difficulty, for whole classes or smaller groups, with a key to indicate where each activity can be easily incorporated into the existing school curriculum. It has a clear aim and full instructions for the games, which are easy to organise and with equipment kept to a minimum. Photocopiable templates are included where necessary. It includes activities that can be carried out between teachers, classroom assistants or volunteers, with simple record sheets for optional use. The book includes materials that may be used as an effective part of a speech and language programme in consultation with a speech and language therapist. This is a unique manual that should be an essential addition to the materials used by every professional working with young children.

This collection bridges the gap between research and practical applications by showcasing the latest research developments on business English as a lingua franca and the ways in which they might better inform language teaching practice. Featuring contributions from both established and emerging researchers in the field, this book brings together research findings on business and workplace English pedagogy with a focus on addressing issues and challenges around spoken communicative needs in the workplace. The volume explores spoken communication in the business context across a diverse range of settings and media, including oral presentations, small talk, meetings, business negotiations, and interviews. Taken together, the book offers an up-to-date synthesis of research on key topics at the intersection of spoken workplace communication and language teaching toward facilitating more engaged, empirically grounded business English as a lingua franca teaching. This book will be of particular interest for students and scholars in business communication, workplace communication, and English for specific purposes.

In India, two critical aspects of public policy — social justice and higher education — have witnessed unprecedented expansion in recent years. While several programmes have been designed by the State to equalise access to higher education and implement formal inclusion, discrimination based on caste, tribe, gender, and rural location continues to exist. Focusing on the concrete experiences of these programmes, this book explores the difficulties and dilemmas that follow formal inclusion, and seeks to redress the disproportionate emphasis on principles rather than practice in the quest for equal access to higher education in India. Offering new perspectives on the debates on social mobility and merit, this volume examines a broad spectrum of educational courses, ranging from engineering, medicine and sciences to social work, humanities and the social sciences that cover all levels of higher education from undergraduate degrees to post-doctoral research. It points to various sources of social exclusion by studying a cross-section of national, elite, subaltern, and sub-regional institutions across the states of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu. Closely involved with the implementation and evaluation of affirmative action programmes, the contributors to the volume highlight the paradoxical ‘sectionalisation’ of reserved candidates, the daunting challenge of combating discrimination. Understanding the need to look beyond formal inclusion to enable substantive change, this important volume will be essential reading for scholars and teachers of sociology, education, social work, economics, public administration, and political science, besides being of great interest to policymakers and organisations concerned with education and discrimination.