2018 Inquiry Focus

Language acquisition for our gifted athletic intermediate boys

Year 5 & 6 Boys Rugby Teams 2017

My focus this year is on a group of intermediate boys who are generally, the most outstanding athletes across all codes in our school.  The focus is on their oral literacy, by expanding their vocabulary and teaching them the language to articulate themselves in different sporting settings.

The students are two Year 8's and two Year 7's who have been captains or vice captains for our school sports teams.  The Year 8's are a prefect and a house captain, so they are in roles where they are expected to speak to large groups of people as school leaders.

I would like for them to learn about the 'when and what to say':

• to ask questions (e.g to the coach, match officials)
• to use social etiquette 
• to react to the opposition's words (good or bad)
• to justify a decision they made on the field or court (be able to explain in detail)
• to explain the coach's game plan to their team-mates
• in a half time time talk (how to critique the game & come up with a strategy to improve)
• to match officials (e.g how to approach or talk to a referee)
• in a captain's speech (e.g. who to acknowledge, to have a an opinion)

What they will learn alongside the above is to practise a:

• thank you speech
• karakia
• mihi
• waiata

Ideas on how to measure the progress of their language acquisition:

• shared google doc
• self reflections shared on blog
• peer reflection
• use audio voice memo to record speeches
• possibly a rubric?

First step is to let the students know that they will be my focus group for the year and to share:

• the sports calendar of training and games for 2018
• purpose for the group 
• set goals to work towards

I'm looking forward to this inquiry as I have tried to teach our athletes over the years about the language to use above, but have not intentionally made it a focus on, to document, measure and share with athletes over the years.