Spoken language is core to learning and has a significant impact on children who find it difficult understanding language or putting their sentences together.

In this SENDcast episode ‘Language for Learning’, we discuss the importance of supporting and promoting language and its impact on learning in the classroom. Dale's guest is Wendy Lee, a speech and language therapist with over 30 years’ experience in a wide range of settings.

“We all bring those different perspectives, and if we can utilise our language to get the best out of the discussion, something else will come out of it that none of us could do on our own. And that's what we want to teach children to be able to do.” Wendy Lee

A focus on Oracy, the ability to express oneself fluently in speech, is growing in many schools in the UK. Wendy explores what this means for children and young people with Speech, Language, Communication Needs (SLCN). Find out how to teach children and young people how to utilise their own talk skills to develop their thinking and their learning. With the right approaches and adaptions your pupils can benefit enormously from a focus on oral language skills in your classroom.

Hear proven strategies you can put in place in your classroom to:

• Enable productive group discussion
• Develop reasoning skills
• Improve collaboration
• Ensure compromise
• Build confidence to talk
• Support conversational practise

About Wendy Lee

Wendy has worked as a speech and language therapist for over 30 years, in clinical practice, higher education and the third sector. She was Professional Director at The Communication Trust until 2015 where she led on a number of projects, as well as inputting on national policy and research.  

Wendy is currently the Director of LINGO, which provides consultancy, professional development, resources and speech and language therapy. She works with academics, academy trusts, schools and settings and in partnership with local and national organisations supporting speech, language and communication.

Contact Wendy Lee

Website - www.lingospeech.co.uk  

Email - [email protected] 

Twitter - @Lingo_speech

Useful Links

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/listeningtolearn/downloads/LearningtoListen-CorePrinciples.pdf 

Exploring the involvement of children and young people with SLCN (ican.org.uk) 

Clark A, Quail S, Moss P, (2003) Exploring the field of Listening to and consulting with Young Children Thomas Coram Research Unit DfES 

Owen, Hayett and Roulstone (2004) Children’s views of speech and language therapy in school: consulting with communication difficulties CLTT  

SEND code of practice: 0 to 25 years - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 

Bercow-Ten-Years-On-Summary-Report-.pdf (bercow10yearson.com) 

Evidence – Bercow: Ten Years On (bercow10yearson.com) 

https://www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk/media/449470/involving_cyp_with_slcn_toolkit.pdf