NET Scheme News 2023 Summer issue 44

of the display board is to give them the opportunity to review the way that language is used. There must be some activities on the board for the students to do. They need to physically manoeuvre words, ideas, phrases in order to remember them, once again providing a structure and context for their learning to make it successful. The use of question starters on boards can also help to consolidate this learning. Teachers have a wonderful opportunity to embed previous learning using the same display in a later lesson. The board also becomes a holistic way of giving peer feedback and the teacher can give instant feedback as well. This enriches the language environment because it is not just about giving them words but showing them what they can do with those words. Students can also take this one step further and learn how to give constructive feedback to their peers. This could be with emojis, written comments or pre-written stickers for the board. Or they could find something they like about each other’s work and comment on it. It is a good way to build positive relationships. Absolutely! Laminated speech bubbles are a good way of doing this because it is positive and it teaches children that you can improve by listening to each other. Students can draw a picture of themselves or take a photo and put this next to their comment or reflection. It could also be about what they have learned from one step to the next. I remember doing running dictation with my students, using the display board when teaching letter writing. They had to read and remember parts of the structure of a formal letter and then run back to tell their partner who wrote it down. They loved it. What other activities could teachers use the board for? It depends upon what is being worked on and whether the purpose of the board is for consolidation of ideas or the introduction of a new concept. Group competitions or games work well using a display. Instead of the teacher labelling something on the display, this could be done as a team game where the students take a language point and stick it on the board in a race. Introducing new words or phrases to the class can be a simple starter. Having a clear idea of your purpose and structure is important if you want the board to be a learning tool as well as a display point. We know how pushed teachers are for time. Is it time consuming to put up the displays? I amnot going to lie, it can be. The benefits are so obvious though, that it is a small price to pay. It is not something that is imposed on teachers and there is no one way of doing it that is successful. You can start small and build. It comes from your classroom content and the focus can be any time during the learning. It might be pre-teaching, during or even after as an ongoing learning task. Once the display is up, it does not take a lot of time, to be able to come up with different activities. For example, at the beginning of the lesson you might say, ‘Find an example of…. Let’s see which team is the first to do it.’ Can we get the students involved in the display design? Yes. Teachers could be in charge of doing the first display. For example, with blog writing, you have elements of the display that are given to groups of students to reflect on their learning and/or students design a task for other students to respond to or participate in. How about interactive activities? The students could design an information gap style activity, which then becomes interactive. One activity we did with students was blog writing. Students used ‘Generate, Sort, Connect’ to first get their ideas down on post-it notes.Then they decided together which idea would best fit into each part of the blog and put them onto the wall display. By doing this we avoid students falling into the trap of thinking that the first draft is the only draft. The process of writing should take time and go through stages. Students are motivated when this process of thinking is shown and they see how they can improve on earlier drafts. Displays can enable students to discuss and enhance their written work for example by using ‘Show, Not Tell’, to bring descriptions to life with more sensory imagery. I love seeing students go from a fairly simple, boring piece of writing to an engaging, effective piece through a process of positive peer feedback. It is also really important to check on each child’s progress. Using the display provides a starting point for conversations about how the student feels about their own work and language learning. If you would like any more information about anything mentioned here or bounce ideas around for your teaching, please get in touch! Luana Hasell and Hannah Standring Regional NET Coordinators, NET Section 3 NET Scheme News Issue 44