Topic “Understanding of Language/Comprehension”  

This is suitable for small group work.

To vary the activity, use different tasks, ensuring that you follow the Listen, Plan, Do, Review sequence.

Encourage the child to use strategies, e.g. making notes, counting steps on their fingers, checking with the demonstration if they are doing all the steps.

Best if played with 4 - 8 children.

Encourage the children to repeat the list in their heads to help memory.

Encourage children to link words with the person that said them.

You can also change the types of items - e.g. I went to the pet shop, I went to toys R us, etc.

As the children improve, increase the number of items they need to remember.

As the children's skills improve, increase the length and complexity of the sentence (e.g. add in more challenging vocabulary or conjunctions to make the sentence longer).

Encourage the children to repeat the list in their heads to help memory.

Encourage children to link words with the person that said them or to look carefully at where the items are.

Start with 3 items on the list for the 'Magpie' and make the lists longer as the children succeed.

You could let the children take turns giving instructions if they are able to give clear instructions.

Slowly increase the length of instructions.

This can be done in any situation.

Let the child know that you will ask them to do this - it does not mean they are in trouble!

If the child has difficulties you can help him/her to recall the story using the following:

Ask a question relevant to the key information in the story. For example, suppose this was part of the story: "Lucy rode her red bicycle down the hill. At the bottom she couldn't stop and fell straight into the fish pond..." Relevant questions would be 'What did Lucy do', 'What happened to Lucy at the bottom of the hill': avoid asking questions about details which aren't particularly relevant to the story such as 'What colour was Lucy's bike?';

Ask the child the question then re-read the part of the story which contains the answer to the question;

Show him/her part of the story using pictures.

Try to guide the child to recall the information with the minimum amount of prompts necessary. Try to avoid the situation where you need to say what the answer is. If you keep needing to do this despite using the ideas above then the story is probably too hard.

At first it will be necessary to tell the child they are going to be asked to retell the instruction to you before they hear the instruction.

If the child finds it challenging, help them to use a visual cue. This could be chunking the information on their fingers for shorter instructions, or making notes on a piece of paper or on a white board for longer ones

To make this more difficult, ask questions where the child needs to infer information from what he/she heard, rather than just remembering the right phrases.

If the children cannot identify the feelings that correspond to the pictures talk about the feelings by describing situations where you would feel that way.

Also encourage the children to think of times that they have felt that way.

To make the task more challenging, remove the visual cues (i.e. the pictures showing the facial expressions).

Another way to make it more challenging is to introduce different feeling words (e.g. proud, anxious, embarrassed, bashful, etc).

Really stress to the children to listen to the voice rather than the words

Get the children to show you different voices for the feelings of happy, sad, angry and excited

Try to get the children to identify how people in the classroom are feeling (e.g. the teacher, their friends)

You may need to support the person hunting the treasure to remember the instruction, by using memory strategies.

If they forget where they need to look, encourage them to ask questions of the group. It is recommended that the group only answers yes / no - i.e. the child must formulate a precise question such as 'is it near the window?' rather than asking 'where is it?'

Alternatively, the person hunting can say 'give me a clue'. The other children must then give them a further instruction to help them, but not tell them exactly where the object is. E.g. 'go forward 2 steps and look up' You may need to support the children to do this.

The instructions you give do not just need to be actions - they can involve the children finding objects, touching particular colours, etc.

The objects can be everyday classroom objects. To make the activity topic specific, use objects linked to a current topic in class or in the language group.

Using objects the children find interesting makes the activity more enjoyable.

For younger children you could use a box, bag, or basket for them to put the objects they collect in.

To help the children develop self-monitoring skills, write down or draw the list of things you asked them to find (use paper or a white board). When they have made their selection, show them the list and have them check if they remembered what they needed to find.

This is easily transferable to classroom activities.

The activity is designed so that the child has to listen to, understand, and remember an instruction of 4-5 key words. If you break the instruction up into the different steps, the child will be working with several short instructions instead of one long one. E.g. 'colour the robot's head blue'. (Pause, child has chance to start doing this part) 'And then colour two shoes red.' is two instructions not one.

Make sure the child listens to your whole instruction before s/he starts to carry it out.

There is automatic feedback in this activity, as the child will be able to see from your picture if s/he got it right. If s/he got it wrong, s/he will be able to see what the instruction actually was.

Use simpler instructions before trying harder ones. So, give the actions in the order the child will do them, before giving them in a different order. E.g.

'clap your hands before you nod your head'

'after you clap your hands, nod your head'

If the child can do this try

'Before you clap your hands, nod your head.

'Nod your head after you clap your hands.'

Again, use simpler instructions, where the steps are in the order the child must do them, before more difficult ones where the child must do them in a different order (see above).

Again, use simpler instructions, where the steps are in the order the child must do them, before more difficult ones where the child must do them in a different order (see above).

Remember to reinforce during the discussion that there could be lots of different outcomes.

This activity can also be done in small groups, encourage all the children to make attempts to predict possible outcomes.

This activity can be done in small groups.

Give all the children an equal opportunity to contribute to the discussion.

Remember to reinforce during the discussion that there could be lots of different possibilities.

If the child is having difficulties identifying the outcome then use the key word to give a clue e.g. Mark has a spade. What do we do with a spade?