Describing pictures and making up stories

Some pupils will benefit from the teacher modelling the language and style of speaking required. Teachers may like to illustrate styles of speech and ideas from the pupils' own work using some pupils as examples of good practice.

Asking the more able speakers to go first can be off putting to some shyer pupils. I have found that by explaining to all pupils that I will be commenting on one good aspect of their speaking and one area where they could improve helps their confidence; this way they all get treated the same and know this before speaking out loud to the rest of the class. There is a tremendous fear among our pupils about speaking out loud. A safe environment is important if we want to avoid the more confident getting louder and opinionated and the shyer, more reticent.

Although a selection of pictures has been included in this resource teachers may have access to class or school picture packs of "stimulating" situations. PSHE could be incorporated into this lesson through the use of pictures involving relationships between pupils, eg a child crying alone in the playground.

Assessment on public speaking and listening can be carried out relatively easily if the teacher goes through a class list and makes notes on the quality of the pupils' speaking skills in a whole class session - I have found this to be a particularly useful exercise when writing reports and during parents' evenings.

Make up a story using as many of the words below as you can. Get ready to tell it to someone else. You will need to think up ways of connecting each word quickly. The words can be used in any order. Tick off each word when you say it. You can make notes to use when you speak.

Set A
would house suddenly bucket afterwards sausage soon because garage sister

Set B
school accident teacher before play game beneath help wound later

This is a page from someone's diary. Use it to elaborate on the events and to tell someone else.