All Talk

How to cite All Talk

Blake, J. , Shortis, T. ,Powell, A. with Osborn, P. and Bailey, A. (2011) All Talk English 14-19  London: BT (www.bt.com/alltalk)

Where is it?

You can get to All Talk by going to www.bt.com/alltalk

This brings you to a URL with a webpage which allows teachers to view and download all the project content for All Talk. This material is all free to download, use and adapt but teachers need to register an email address with a password.

What is it?

All Talk supports English GCSE and A level students in the study of Spoken Language, and Speaking and Listening. The website has a downloadable workbook with accompanying online videos and web extras to support a range of engaging classroom activities.

• Some suggestions of how teachers can access and make best use of All Talk in conjunction with our specifications.

All Talk is a big site with substantial content. It is also designed to be easy and enjoyable to access. To find the particular material they want  teachers can use a search  menu or scroll down the site. The search menu includes topics set for AQA’s module on spoken language and three of the units are specifically designed to focus on fostering skills required for effective  speaking and listening.

The material is broken down into manageable, practical components and clearly signposted. For example the teacher workbook is available in optimized photocopy masters for the teachers’ use with a separate version for students.

In more detail, the All Talk site consists of:

• a 116 page workbook of 15 units of material for teaching about spoken language and speaking and listening;

• 15 photocopy booklets taken from the workbook for teachers and for students for each unit;

• 35 YouTube style videos illustrating aspects of spoken language and speaking and listening,  including multimodal talk;
• Teacher guides to each of the units including references and other sources;
• Transcripts of the spoken language recordings for each of the units;
• Weblinks  for each of the 15 topics

All Talk in paper, DVD and in person

In addition, all Heads of English in state schools in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are about to receive (28/10/11) a printed colour copy of the All Talk workbook and a DVD of the core video content, along with a poster, all free.

There are five free days of CPD before the end of this term when teachers can come to share their approaches in using the materials with the team which wrote All Talk. For details, contact alltalkresources.com

The development of All Talk

All Talk was developed by its writers in consultation with teachers, examiners, teacher educators and researchers with much of it trialled in schools, colleges and universities throughout the UK. Following the advice of senior moderators, All Talk is intended to offer a range of starting points for studying spoken language and speaking and listening and can be used from 14-19. Some units, such as those on names and idiolect, could be used with Year 9 students. Others would not be out of place in teaching  A Level English Language and English Language and Literature, especially in the first year of those courses. All Talk could also support study of communication skills in other courses, including NVQs.

All Talk aims to be engaging and wide-ranging in its representation and includes material which is often missed out of published GCSE teaching resources including deaf students and their teacher signing in BSL  and coverage of experiences of multilingual students talking about their use of home and community languages.