A comprehensive PLD programme focused on expanding the quality and quantity of learners’ expression in the classroom and enhancing learners’ language acquisition potential.
•    Exploring key principles and notions
•    Assessing expressive and participatory student behaviours and capabilities
•    Exploring methodologies, approaches and strategies, supported with classroom examples 
•    Applying / implementing / modelling relevant to current classes and curriculum focuses

A core reference text underpinning this focus is: van Hees, J. (2007) Expanding oral
language in the classroom. Wellington: NZ: NZCER.

Knowledge building relies to the largest extent on language as the prime meaning-making tool. It is important that teachers have the knowledge and skills to be pedagogically effective so learners’ capability is potentialized. Language learning relies in most part on intentionality. 

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Pedagogy that focuses on language in abundance and languaging minds pays attention to explicitly involving learners in texts, spoken and written. It surfs learners into language complexity, wave by wave. By so doing, learners cognitive capabilities are expanded, their knowledge reservoirs are filled more deeply and fully, and their vocabulary and language comprehension and expression shift upwards and out as a result.

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Teachers and school leaders are given the knowledge and pedagogical support to implement teaching and learning that take learners to higher levels of capabilities. In the short and long term, learners are enabled when language in abundance is provided optimally, and explicit attention is paid to languaging minds. 

A comprehensive PLD programme focused on exponentially expanding students’ vocabulary resources in all curriculum areas, and creating a school-wide word powerful culture and pedagogy.

• Exploring key understandings and inclusions

• Vocabulary assessment – identifying the scope of insights into learners’ vocabulary knowledge

• Exploring methodologies, approaches and strategies, supported with prepared classroom examples

• Applying and modelling implementation relevant to Year levels and curriculum focuses

• Linking to families and homes – vocabulary home-school partnerships

 

A core reference text underpinning this focus is: van Hees, J. & Nation, P. (2017) What every primary teacher should know about vocabulary. Wellington: NZ: NZCER.

A comprehensive PLD programme focused on providing teachers with linguistic knowledge and tools, and core methodologies, approaches and strategies to craft writing in the classroom and students as crafted writers. 

• Analysis and assessing students’ writing samples

• Core attentions:  preparing for writing, crafting effective sentences and paragraphs, on-going editing,  text types and text processes, the grammar of writing, vocabulary expansion and selection

• Core approaches: co-construction, re-construction, de-constructio,  self-generating

Become an expert teacher of writing, and inspire your learners as capable writers.

Diagnostic, formative and summative assessment, in language AND in other areas of learn, co-contribute to insights into learner competency – at a point in time; as a trend across time.

 

Each ‘assessment lens’ has a role to contribution to the information flow a) to his/her teacher or tutor; b) to the learner/s so that are metacognitively involved in competency measures and judgements; c) for macro-reporting, about learner capabilities and pedagogical effectiveness; and d) to whanau and families who majorly are key players in the learning and capabilities of their children.

 

Whatever the assessment measure stance and tool, like all tools, they are designed to put the lens on one or more elements – a particular view or ‘deep dive’ point. As with any tool, its design may or may not be fully fit for purpose, or distinctively specific.

 

Educational practitioners need to be mindful of these points. In language assessment, what, how, why, when and what are important elements to identify when selecting purpose, use, usability, degree of insightfulness.

 

Tap into my expertise to explore, learn to selectively choose, use, analyse and interpret, from a full range of formative, summative and diagnostic tools and approaches. These serve to open up windows of clarity on the language capability of a learner/child/adult, dependent on context, age and stage, context and capabilities and hiccup points. 

 

My specialization in language assessment of a general English language lens, and in context, subject, content-specific language situations, include:

• language assessment of young children – 3-7 years old

• using a bilingual approach to language assessment – to identify English and other languages capabilities

• assessment in oral language

• assessment in vocabulary – oral and written, receptive and productive – across various ages and stages

• literacy assessment – reading and writing - across various ages and stages

Human babies are born to communicate orally and gesturally. Their brain architecture begins to form as early on as 5-6 weeks in the first trimester of a pregnancy, with nerve connections and brain tissue growing rapidly over the first months and beyond. When born, a baby’s capacity to learn is poised on the edge of potentiality. Their pathways of capability are reliant to the greatest extent on the environment in which they are situated day-to-day. This reality doesn’t change as a child moves along their growth trajectory.

 

The first 1000 days of a baby’s life situated in a more or less ‘best for baby’ environment, critically shapes their next and on-going progress. Research and practice converge and agree – ‘best for baby’ is optimally ‘talk accompanied’ interaction that offers the child new learning, is involving and responsive, paced and honed in the ‘goldilocks zone’ of the child.

 

Language is a key contributor to a child’s learning. Languaging minds captures this truth. Learn about early years’ optimal conditions for learning and language acquisition for pre-schoolers. Learn about the optimal conditions needed by children aged 4-7 years at this significant stage of childhood. A 4-7 year old is poised to exponentially expand their language competency, perceive the world in new ways, and acquire higher level vocabulary and grammatically of expression. Learn the why, what and how of classroom practices that optimally tap into a child’s early years of schooling learning potentiality.

 

Learn about the ‘magical conditions’ that can be on offer for five, six and seven year olds to become the language ‘experts’ they can be. Be excited by the possibilities of growing a child’s language capability optimally, and in turn growing their capability socially, cognitively and emotionally.

 

My expertise in child learning and language acquisition is extensive. Join me and expand your knowledge too. Beyond theory, research and academics, deep dive with me into practical ways to exponentially expand a young learner’s spoken and written language capabilities – receptive and productive. Be astounded by the cognitive and social growth of a 4-7 year old when optimal learning and language acquisition conditions are available.

Years 7-13 - the years of intermediate and secondary education - are points in a students’ educational journey when texts become increasingly ‘academic’ in nature. ‘Academic’ texts have particular features - whether spoken or written.

 

The wide range of ‘academic’ texts students at this age and stage encounter throughout their learning, and need to produce, are grammatically, structurally, organisationally, lexically (the depth and breadth of vocabulary) and cognitively - knowledge and meanings, more complex and ‘tighter’ in what gets conveyed.

 

My grammatical expertise and applied practice of this within subject specialities is extensive. After years in secondary teaching as a science, language and learning specialist, I offer to share this knowledge with teachers at Year levels 7-13. Currently, my work focuses strongly on languaging subject specialities at these levels.

 

My passion and expertise is available to support subject specialists, English and ESOL teachers, and learning generalists, to enable their students as strong meaning-makers and communicators. It’s about languaging science, social sciences, economics, mathematics, health and sport science, technologies, and other subject and topic areas..

 

Set out on a journey of exploration and empowerment - pedagogically, and ultimately to strengthen learner capabilities in the demanding space of learning, understanding and producing at intermediate and secondary levels.  

Oral expression, a sound knowledge of high frequency vocabulary, depth and breadth of low frequency vocabulary, alongside phonological awareness and reading fluency, are pre-requisites to developing as a readers and writers. In the Baseline English resource and programme, gaps in these ‘basics’ are carefully and systematically scaffolded whereby each student’s unique developmental English language learning pathway is followed and developed.

 

This training programme for teachers and language assistants (three full-day workshops) prepares you to implement the programme optimally. When used effectively, this resource and programme truly ‘enables’ students expressively and in literacy, as well as lifting their confidence, fluency and level of focus and engagement. The resource and programme can be used with learners across ages and stages of English language learning.

What every teacher needs to have in their grammatical toolbox, with these major focuses:

• Deepening teachers’ understandings of English grammar, theoretically and applied

• Grammar in the classroom: analysing classroom contexts and texts, with the intention to understand and use more effectively as teachers / as students

• The determinants of text grammar – topic and register

• Rethinking genre and text types – visual, oral and print

• From simple to more complex text

• Comparing the grammar of spoken and written texts

• Exploring the concept of ‘correct’ English

• Unpacking and building ‘rich’ text examples

The above are explored meaningfully using actual classroom examples.

NB: A specific emphasis can also be identified e.g. a focus on written text, or oral text.