Teaching and learning: from the script to pedagogy
Our work in literacy does not have to have our students tied to a desk, involved in tedious or mind-numbingly repetition and practice.
Annette Gray is a literacy consultant and adviser. She has many years’ successful teaching experience in classrooms K-10 across Australia and in international settings.
New year, new ideas, new perspectives
2019 – new year, new ideas, new perspectives. There will be some retreads and updates of oldies but goodies in everyone’s practice. And we can predict there will be a comeback for some of the repeatedly discredited same old same olds. There are ideas and mantras that keep turning up like uninvited guests. They have…
Looking at the literacy landscape
If you are doing any sort of a road trip with your family this year, the question ‘Are we there yet?’ is one which might become very familiar. The landscape can slip by while we concentrate on our driving, on the need to stop for food or fuel or toilet breaks, and the car talk,…
How are we going to manage talking and listening?
Talking and listening in the classroom is really the bread and butter of what we do as teachers and learners. While we, the formal assessors, together with the world at large (including parents), might value the written word over talk, and certainly accept the written word for evidence of learning (appropriately constructed, of course), it…
Dialogic teaching and talking about writing
Dialogic teaching, a term created by Dr Robin Alexander in the early 2000s, harnesses the power of talk to stimulate and extend students’ thinking and advance their learning and understanding.
Talking about writing
Two recent publications from the Primary English Teaching Association Australia (PETAA) have contributed to the topical subject of classroom talk, or ‘dialogic teaching’, which emphasises the ‘natural affordances and opportunities that dialogue gives children to learn.’
Writing and music
Written text can be like music – creative and exciting, thrilling and moving.
Thinking about Context Part 2: Writing the Future
The voices and ideas of the teachers, academics, writers and children at PETAA’s ‘Professional Learning Intensive’ “Writing the Future” radiated from the ‘pages’ of their presentations.
Thinking about Context Part 1: Writing the Future
Total immersion indeed. PETAA’s ‘Professional Learning Intensive’ was described as presenting writing ‘to teachers in context’. It did that and more in this two days of professional learning for educators from all over the country.
Investing in our profession
Investing in our profession by joining a professional organisation makes sense. We want increased credibility as teachers, we want the world to understand the expanding complexities of the teaching process…