COURSE 1
Notice. Don't Diagnose.
— Oral Language
Who it is for
Primary and secondary teachers, EAL/D teachers, learning support staff and literacy leaders who notice students struggling with classroom language, but are unsure whether the underlying issue relates to vocabulary, sentence structure, comprehension, language demands, participation or something else.
The classroom problem
A student may:
give very short or incomplete answers
appear not to understand instructions
struggle to explain their thinking
use limited or repetitive vocabulary
avoid classroom discussion
appear to “know” something but struggle to express it
rely heavily on peers or teacher prompting
produce language that doesn't match the language demands of the task.
The danger is moving straight from observable difficulty → assumed diagnosis → strategy.
What the teacher will be able to do afterwards
Teachers will be able to:
notice specific oral-language difficulties rather than describing a student as simply “low in language”
distinguish between different aspects of oral-language performance
consider the language demands of a classroom task
identify possible contributing factors without diagnosing
use observations and student language samples to inform their thinking
NOTICE → UNDERSTAND → RESPOND → IMPLEMENT
NOTICE
What exactly is the student doing/not doing?
UNDERSTAND
What aspects of oral language might be contributing to the difficulty?
RESPOND
What teaching response best matches the identified barrier?
IMPLEMENT
How will the teacher apply, observe and adjust the response?
Practical activities
Classroom observation activity
Oral-language problem identification
Student language sample analysis
“What do you notice?” scenarios
Possible-cause activity
Response-matching decision activity
Final classroom application task
Companion document
A downloadable course companion/workbook containing:
key concepts
activity spaces
student samples
research
Completion/badge mechanism
Notice. Don't Diagnose — Oral Language Badge
Awarded after completion of the course and final application activity.
Price
$69