Standard 3.5 - Use Effective Classroom Communication
Proficient Use effective verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to support student understanding, participation, engagement and achievement.
Throughout a school day I use a range of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to support student understanding, participation, engagement and achievement.
Gaining student attention. To gain students attention I use a mixture of verbal and non-verbal strategies. Below are some example. - Counting backwards from 5. When I get to 0 students should have their hand on their head and eyes to me. - Waterfall. Teacher says waterfall and students reply with shhhhhh and move their hands like running water. - Mirror clapping. Teacher starts clapping or tapping legs and students copy. - Pineapple Pineapple. Teacher says “pineapple, pineapple” and students reply “spikey on to.” The teacher than repeats “pineapple, pineapple” and students reply “that means stop.”
Supporting participation and engagement. - Pop sticks. At times I use pop sticks with students’ names on them to ask questions. This means all students need to think about the question as they don’t know whose turn it will be to answer. I also us the pop sticks to ensure all the students get chosen to do an activity (for example writing a sound on the board). - Using visuals and songs. I use visuals and songs to help teach concepts. I find that students, especially the Receptions, engage really well with visuals, including videos, or songs. - Grouping. At times I strategically group students in was that will support their participation and engagement. This may include grouping by ability (reading groups), mixed ability groups, random groups and grouping students with those who they will work well with.
Other verbal and non-verbal communication strategies I use within the classroom include: - Changing my body language - Writing in communication books to parents - Classroom displays for students and parents to refer to - Using gestures and expressions - making sure they are culturally appropriate - Changing the tone and volume of my voice - I display the classes schedule for all students and have individual ones for students on OSP - Coloured stickers that students use to indicate how they felt about the task. Green = I did this independently and understood it, Yellow = I needed some support but with practise I will understand it and Orange = I needed lots of support and found it challenging.