FAQ

Walking Talking Texts is a methodology for teaching English-Additional-Language or Dialect (EAl/D) learners. Units of work are based around the written English text of a book. The methodology includes the range of teaching strategies needed to teach ESL effectively - both oral language and literacy. Walking Talking Texts is a language-teaching program. The teaching of oracy and literacy in English are planned for, within the broader framework of teaching English-as-a second-language.

In bilingual programs the Petal Planner is used for students in the beginning stages of learning English, to establish a level of Oral English that is sufficient to support literacy development in English. In these schools, this occurs whilst students are learning initial literacy through their home language, a language they understand and speak.

In English-language medium-of -instruction schools, the Petal Planner can use in the first two to three years of school. The Petal Planner methodology enables the learning of spoken English and orientation to English literacy behaviours through group engagement with texts in school learning contexts.

The Column Planner methodology teaches explicit use of and learning about independent literacy skills. Learners engage with texts in group contexts through a rnage of activities and exercises during which they are taught to read and write whilst continuing to develop oral English for academic purposes. After group engagement with texts, students are scaffolded into independent reading and writing at age-grade level targets.

This is a frequently asked question and a very important one as it is commonly stated to me that teachers have been told that Walking Talking Texts means a 'book a term'. This is in fact not the case. So how long should a unit of WTT last? This document explains the recommended length of units based on age of student/year level.

The attached document contains questions commonly asked about the approach. If you have any additional questions, please ask.

Walking Talking Texts is an English-Additional-Language/Dialect (EAL/D) methodology based around the written English text of a book. It covers the range of teaching strategies needed to teach oral and written English to EAL/D students in a formal school context.
Walking Talking Texts focusses on language-teaching. It enables teachers to actively teach all four modes of language use: listening, speaking, reading and writing. As a LANGUAGE teaching methodology, it is broader, more linguistically informed and underpinned by language learning theories. Whilst it enables the teaching of literacy, it places litieracy in the context of learning a language for communicative and academic purposes that necessitate learnign to listen and speak in and through an additional language where that language is the language of instruction.

In Bilingual programs (Two-Way Schools) the Petal Planner is used in Early Childhood classes (5-8yrs of age). In English-language only medium-of -instruction schools, the Petal Planner is recommended for use in the first and second years of schooling. The Petal Planner, when implemented, teaches learners

• how to use spoken English in a formal school setting
• what English looks like when it is written down, so when learners come to read and write it themselves, they will be familiar with it
• to join in group reading experiences in English
• to learn about written English by watching the teacher write group negotiated texts

When learners can communicate orally in their second/additional language (when they have communicative and are acquiring some academic levels of that language at their disposal), then learning to read and write the in the additional language will be facilitated. Learning to read and write the additional language can then mirror the processes involved in learning to read and write in a first language, where learners are already literate in home language. Additional language learners will continue to develop cross-linguistic and cultural knowledge and skills as oracy and literacy in L2 grow.

Walking Talking Texts is most effective when it is used as a whole school program. The reasons for this are:

• students receive a consistent teaching/learning program from year to year. In this way, students become familiar with all the strategies/activities in the program so that they can then concentrate on the new English language structures to be learned

• teachers and students all know what students have done before;  when the school has organized the scope and sequence of texts to be used (which books/texts will be used in which Year levels), there is less repetition of topics, of using texts that are too low a level (or too high) and (new) teachers are not left wondering what text to use and what level to target for particular groups of students.

• all teachers are using the same pedagogy, therefore Learning Together Sessions can be targetted at (multiple) teachers’ needs

• tracking of students’ achievement through the assessment data and evidence collected in portfolios from year to year is enabled.

Preschool learners do not yet need/nor should they have a formal language and literacy program. Preschool learners need lots of experiences that promote and develop their first language. Pre-school learners need exposure to English informally for a short time each day (big books read to them, group songs and singing games, chants and rhymes).

When learners enter Transition, usually at age 5, they can begin a formal Oral English program presented through the Petal Planner.

The Column Planner has been adjusted to address the needs of Secondary students through a ‘novel study’. Walking Talking Texts has a history of successful delivery to Secondary students in the 80s. The recommendation is that ESL Indigenous students who are of Secondary school age engage in ‘novel’ length texts to enable scaffolding into extended oral and written texts, based on the requirements of Secondary school curricula. Some forms of informational and other factual texts may also be suitable as stimulus texts for secondary students.

Integration with other Learning Areas is a feature of Walking Talking Texts, The teaching of English of, and through, other Learning Areas is essential to learning the English of successful learning in school.

The application of learned English into other Learning Areas occurs well into a unit of work and this is for a specific purpose. Students need to learn the new English language words, sentences and meanings (that is, they need time and teaching, to build up the field of knowledge in English) about the topic, before they can begin to learn new concepts using the English learned.

In the Early Childhood years, the Learning Area integration may take from one to four lessons of work. As the students get older and the English language required becomes more complicated, and the topics more abstract, the integrated areas may become minor units of work within a Walking Talking Texts unit. The latter may take three or four weeks within a one Term WTT unit, e.g. a science focus in which students and teacher look at different habitats in the local environment, make retrieval charts and write a report on different animals or eco systems (from the unit Where the Forest Meets the Sea).

The Learning Outcomes for the integrated areas come from the appropriate curriculum outcomes for that Learning Area. It will also be necessary to timetable separately for other learning areas not covered through integration as only outcomes linked to the topic in an authentic way will be achieved through Walking Talking Texts. The outcomes in other curriculum areas (not linked to the topic) will need to be planned for and taught in an ESL informed way as Learning Areas in their own right.

Walking Talking Texts has been designed so that the learners engage in English language activities and exercises in a unit of work in a sequence which:

• teaches them the new English language for the unit of work
• allows them to practise the language many times in slightly different situations (this repetition may seem unnecessary to first-language English speakers, however, second language learners need and appreciate the time and opportunity to practise new language so they can internalise it and learn to use it with ease)
• provides vocabulary extension for learners’ repertoire of English
• teaches all three cueing systems and skills for literacy - graphophonic, syntactic and semantic
• teaches both formal and informal use of English (interpersonal, informational and aesthetic)
• makes sure that all aspects of learning English, learning about English and learning through English are covered (when teachers follow the sequence of activities and exercises).

Walking Talking Texts also supports schools to teach students more effectively when the whole school follows the program, as teachers can talk together about what works well, how to do particular activities etc.

Where the whole school follows WTT, the students also learn what is expected of them in each activity/exercise. This means that in subsequent units/years, students do not have to spend time learning how to do the activity or guessing what the ‘new’ teacher wants them to do (what the teacher expects) - they can concentrate on the new English language they are learning from the activity.

Walking Talking Texts can be used in multi-age classes:

• the teacher can use the same book/text as a stimulus for the unit
• all learners will participate in the activities in the central column or the Petal Planner together, joining in the group activities at their own level/ability
• it is recommended that  teachers use a text that meets the linguistic needs of the most ‘English-able’ students while at the same time allowing the younger students access to the concepts of the text, (and some of the language).
• the other way to cater for a wide span in a multi-age group is to work with two texts on the same topic, one with higher-level text and one with more simple text.
• in setting up the exercises and the independent writing, (side columns of the Column Planner), the teacher will cater for the different levels/abilities of the learners by planning for and providing a different level of scaffolding while ensuring that the exercises  extend each child, for example,
  • younger /less English-proficient readers and writers can be given a written cloze exercise using the same topic/text that has only a few key words left out, with perhaps some beginning letters included and model of the text to refer to
  • older/more English-proficient learners would use the same text with more words left out  and limited clues to support them
  • independent learners would work on a text drawing on their own repertoire of oral and written English to predict and add grammatically text.
• the Petal Planner should be no problem in multi-age classes as it is an oral language program; teachers will know individual learners and their abilities and will need to plan to meet the needs of particular learners according to this knowledge
• a mixed group of  learners involved in the Petal Planner and the column planner is often beneficial as the less English-proficient learners can often learn from the more proficient English-learners in group situations (less English-proficient learners are under no threat to perform individually in this situation which promotes further learning)
• for individual writing, the teacher again will know what each learner can do and how:
  • more English-proficient writers will be able to attempt their own first drafts with the support of the classroom resources created from the unit of work
  • less English/literacy-proficient writers may need a skeleton text on which they fill in small sections/single words using the teacher's model of a group negotiated text (active copying versus passive copying!)
• multi-age teaching using Walking Talking Texts means that
  • the topic/task is the same
  • the expectations differ according to the level of English-language ability of the particular students
• cross-age tutoring is also a strategy that can be used in a multi-age group when the teacher and students are familiar with Walking Talking Texts
• Walking Talking Texts utilises group work before independent work on any task
• in a multi-age group, the most English- proficient students can be paired/grouped with less English-proficient students for the exercises (practice of language items)
• the sample units of work - Where the Forest Meets the Sea & the Story of Rosy Dock- have been planned with a multi-age group in mind.

Walking Talking Texts takes the teacher and students through a range of both oral and written genres in each unit of work. Walking Talking Texts requires the teacher to model how to write in each genre through a group negotiation of the text first, before the students attempt to write their own.

Depending on the genre of the stimulus text, and the nature of the integrated activities, a unit of work can/will cover narrative, recount, procedure, descriptive writing and report writing. Beverley Deriwianka's text Exploring How Texts Work is a resource that the school should buy for Learning Together Sessions. There is also a video available with this resource. It is published by the Primary English Teacher's Association (PETA).

Walking Talking Texts is a framework within which teachers can plan to teach outcomes from the ESL (and the English curriculum) and from other curriculum areas through integration of the outcomes of other Learning Areas, in units of work.

It is the responsibility of the teachers/school as a whole to ensure that outcomes from the curriculum documents are being covered and incorporated into Walking Talking Texts units of work throughout the school. Walking Talking Texts uses the curriculum pathway of the ESL Framework of Stages - a scope and sequence document for ESL students.

The answer given for the previous question is also relevant to this question. Walking Talking Texts does provide Teaching Goals and Learning Outcomes for each of the activities in the Petal Planner and the central section of the Column Planner.

These goals and outcomes come from the ESL Framework of Stages mentioned above. While these goals and outcomes will be addressed as teachers implement each activity, the overall outcomes (ESL and Learning Areas), identified as targets based on student assessment data, are sourced from the NTCF.

The easiest way to begin using Walking Talking Texts is to start with a sample unit of work that has already been planned. Just begin with activity A (Petal Planner) or 1 (Column Planner) and implement all of the activities as planned. List any activities or exercises that you have trouble with/are not sure of, and these can become the focus of Learning Together sessions at your school.

Walking Talking Texts provides blank planners for both the Petal (page 40) and the Column Planner (page 163). These planners scaffold the programming and implementation process for teachers. It is best to plan in teaching groups of two or more. Write in activities/ideas related to the chosen text to the planner in the appropriate places. The Column Planner is now available electronically. There are also daily planners for the petal (page 183) and the Column Planner (page 197).

Included are some possible timetables for using Walking Talking Texts in a Bilingual school that uses the Staircase Model of bilingual instruction. These timetables do not have to be followed, they just give and idea of how Walking Talking Texts can be implemented as the School's English language program.

In order to use Walking Talking Texts in classrooms, it will be necessary to organise some of the school's many text resources into year/section levels for the school, so that learners are not repeating texts as they go through the years, and so that the texts to which the students are being exposed, reflect development in English language difficulty. This task should not be a problem as most schools have enough resources in the library to begin working with Walking Talking Texts. The text lists at the back of Walking Talking Texts can be used as a reference when organising the resources.

It is not necessary to organise all the books before starting to use Walking Talking Texts in classrooms. Each class group only needs a book to start with and a book to go on with.

Any teacher can pick some of the ideas and use them to enhance current classroom practice. However Walking Talking Texts has been written and planned as a total ESL methodology and program and if only some of the activities and/or exercises are used, then the program being used is NOT Walking Talking Texts.

The correct implementation of Walking Talking Texts means that teachers implement each activity and exercise in the sequence in which they have been written.

Each activity/exercise has been included for the particular English language skill/knowledge it focuses on and teaches. In choosing to implement some activities/exercise and not others, teachers can leave out vital elements and sequences that ESL students need, to achieve competence.

When left to our own preferences/abilities in teaching, some of us (teachers) would have a 'thematic' oriented unit of work where the learners participate in interesting activities, but not necessarily with any targeted spoken or written skills outcomes; others of us would have a program full of language exercises, where learners for example, do worksheet English to get aspects of the grammar correct or spelling lists. Walking Talking Texts has a balance of both of these aspects of teaching, when the activities/exercises are followed.

The use of a shared text and the teaching strategies that go with 'shared reading' are an integral part of implementing Walking Talking Texts. Reading shared texts allows students to see and hear a model of English reading as the teacher reads.

Shared reading also reduces the embarrassment of individual reading where ESL students can sometimes feel inhibited and thus learn not to take risks in learning. This is a good topic to explore at Learning Together sessions.

Shared reading involves having the group of students predict what is coming next, teacher pointing out aspects of English language (graphophonics, spelling rules and inconsistencies, rhyming words etc), as well as the basics such as pointing to each word as it is read. In other words, demonstrating reading behaviours to ESL students.

Some Two-way (Bilingual) schools which use WALKING TALKING TEXTS as a whole school program, decided to use the same methodology with an adapted format for vernacular programs. This came about as a result of Indigenous Assistant Teachers and Indigenous teachers expressing a desire to teach the vernacular program in the same way that they saw English being taught; it was a decision made at the local school level by people involved in the programs, including the Teacher-linguists. The schools that began to do this in the 80s and 90s are still following this model.

Walking Talking Texts was listed on the recommended curriculum charts in the 80s and 90s as a support document for the English curriculum. Currently as a support (Layer Two) document for the NTCF (ESL Outcomes), it does not replicate what other documents do, it has a reciprocal, complementary relationship with other documents such as Learning English in Aboriginal Schools which describes how to use many of the strategies incorporated into Walking Talking Texts. Unlike other documents, Walking Talking Texts provides an ESL methodology organised into a scaffolded implementation format; it was written as a document meant to sit on teachers’ desks during the working day to support them in their teaching.

Walking Talking texts has been used with English-first-language speakers in ‘mainstream’ classrooms. EL1 speakers should be able to produce work at a more complicated English language level, without the amount of scaffolding needed for ESL speakers. Walking Talking Texts is flexible in its design so that learners can achieve at the level they are able to, and are taught to. EL1 speakers come to school with the semantic and syntactic knowledge of English already well developed as their home language, therefore those aspects of language learning which are emphasised in Walking Talking Texts come more easily to most E1 learners. The same applies for other language-background learners using their first language to achieve literacy. The texts used in particular age/year levels could also be of a more complex English language level than those used for ESL learners, due to the background these learners bring to school in the language of instruction.

The Petal Planner was originally designed for Bilingual schools which use the 'staircase' model of Bilingual education where learners in Early childhood classes have an Oral English program until they transfer literacy skills developed in their first language, to English, in the Primary grades.

The Petal Planner is also used in the first year of formal schooling for ESL Indigenous Learners in English-language only medium of instruction schools. The majority of schools in the NT use the Petal Planner in the ESL for Indigenous language Speaking Students (ILSS) program.

The Petal Planner is an Oral English methodology that exposes the learners to the group reading and writing of English language texts. This is based on the theory that learners are more successful in reading and writing in English when they understand the 'culture' of reading and writing in English, and the fact that we use spoken and written English in very different ways, and that the ways in which we do this, need to be taught. As well as the passive reading and writing exposure written into the Petal Planner, each activity has been chosen with the purpose of using spoken English to teach spoken English, to teach about Spoken English and to teach through Spoken English (See the analysis of the activities on page 3 of Walking Talking Texts).

The Column Planner is made of up the petal planner which has been elongated and written in the central shaded column, so that spoken English is the core of the English program; on each side, independent writing (left hand column) and exercises (right hand column) give learners practice in independent reading and writing skills.

The Column Planner is for learners who are in a classroom program which teaches literacy in and through English at the same time that spoken English is being taught - Primary years in 'staircase' Bilingual (Two-way) models; and from Year One/Two in English-language-only medium schools (the Petal Planner is advised for Transition in all schools, with the addition of 10 - 15 mins a day practising/playing at writing). A deliberate feature of the Column Planner is that no speaking, reading and writing requirements are expected of learners on an individual, independent basis until the requirements of these language tasks have been taught, modelled and scaffolded by the teacher first (in the central column). By following the numbered activities and exercises in sequence, this aspect of the methodology is realised.

Each activity/exercise has been included to teach and give learners practice in a different aspect of using English; each activity builds upon the previous ones, so jumping too far out of the suggested sequence or leaving some out will not enable the learners of the amount of time and practice they will need, as learners of another language, to internalise the English taught and to practise the new aspects of English they are learning.

The document has been written to cater for learners in the age range represented by learners from Transition (first year of school) to Year Seven and into the Secondary years.

These young learners do not need the more formal aspects of school just yet; however, in order to familiarise young ESL Indigenous learners with some aspects of ‘school-learning’, Preschool teachers could take aspects of the Petal Planner and use these, as many preschool teachers would do in their programs anyway (read short simple English language texts with clear and interesting illustrations to the learners, sing songs, learn rhymes, do simple role plays for about 10 to 15 mins a day);

Is WALKING TALKING TEXTS suitable for Secondary students? WALKING TALKING TEXTS has been used with Secondary Aged students effectively in the past. The Column planner has been slightly adjusted to accommodate the learning of ESL through a novel study where students are required to write a journal based on the reading of the novel as required in the English Learning area in Secondary programs. Some factual texts may also be suitable as the stimulus for a WTT unit in the Secondary area as well.

The length of a unit of work depends on the age/year level of the learners, the length of the stimulus text and the amount of integrated Learning Area studies a particular book lends itself to. In general, a unit of work for Transition/Year one learners takes from one to two weeks (three at the most) With older learners and more complicated texts, the amount of time needed for the units of work becomes longer. While most Middle Primary units of work would be about five to six weeks, it is more often the case than not, that the units of work in Upper Primary and Secondary engage learners in active learning for the full ten-week term.