What is OTISA, anyway?

Have you tried out the OTISA online literacy resource yet?

We’ve designed OTISA – Online tutoring: improving student achievement – to support the Australian Curriculum in English.  This table shows what is covered by the resource and how it links to the AC.

In particular, we believe it provides excellent support for the teaching and learning of grammar.

We acknowledge that grammar is best taught and learned in the context of reading and writing, but we also believe that learning needs consolidation.

Which is what this resource provides.

Before each set of activities, students can read or listen to a brief revision of the main points. And the activities themselves are self-correcting, with explanations.  You could follow up on classroom work, for  example, by setting in-class or homework activities for students to confirm their understanding.  Importantly, your online access allows you to view how your students have performed, and will tell you whether or not learning has taken place. This information, of  course, will help you to decide on your next teaching steps with groups or individual students.

OTISA also provides focussed and concise professional learning for teachers.  If you would like to brush up on your grammar knowledge, and read practical suggestions related to the teaching of parts of grammar in context, you can do this quickly and easily. With your colleagues, you could use some of the suggestions as a basis for planning.

Available on subscription, OTISA provides students with access both at school and at home.

If you would like to explore the resource, please email info at otisa dot com dot au (email address written like this to avoid spam!)   to receive your one week trial teacher subscription.

Parents and NAPLAN: how concerned should you be?

NAPLAN tests in literacy and numeracy will take place on May 14, 15 and 16 for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9.
Both before and after those dates the media will probably feature a fair few negative articles about the test, and you might even wonder whether you should withdraw your child from the testing process.
But how much should you worry?
Firstly, it’s important to understand the purpose of the NAPLAN tests.  They’re designed
• to measure whether Australian students are meeting the outcomes outlined in the Australian Curriculum,
• to provide information about the achievements of individual students so that schools can be specific about meeting their needs, and
• to provide schools and education departments with information about the effectiveness of their educational programs.

Of course you are most interested in the impact on your child, so what’s the deal with NAPLAN?

The important thing to recognise is that NAPLAN assessment is just one part of a school’s assessment program. In no way does it provide a comprehensive picture of your child’s achievement and progress, and nor does it try to. It can, however, provide useful information about aspects of your child’s literacy and numeracy progress which might need further support. Importantly, in analysing the data provided by the NAPLAN results, schools draw on their own more extensive knowledge of individual students as part of their evaluation.
You can be reassured about this because there are various reasons why a child might not ‘perform’ on the day. Perhaps he or she is overly anxious or not feeling well, for instance. For this reason, attaching too much significance to the results can be misleading.
Having said that, I would reiterate that the information derived from NAPLAN can be extremely useful, so how can you help your child to prepare?
• Reassure children, but only if they seem to need that reassurance. If you link NAPLAN with stress, then maybe this will actually create anxiety. You know your child best, and you will know whether or not they need reassurance.
• Play down the significance of the tests, emphasising that they are just one part of the school’s assessment program and explain why they are held.
• Remind children that the focus is on effort, on doing their best, rather than on worrying about results.
• On a practical note, make sure they get a good night’s sleep before the test and a good breakfast in the morning.
Teachers will have shared examples of NAPLAN tests so that children are familiar with them. They will probably have practised answering questions.
There are four individual tests. The first one tests children’s knowledge of language conventions (spelling, grammar and punctuation); the second one asks children to complete a piece of persuasive writing on a particular topic; the third one tests reading skills, and the final one tests numeracy. The specific skills that are being tested reflect the Australian Curriculum.
Otisa offers children the opportunity to practise the skills described in the Australian Curriculum.

Teaching activities to help students understand direct and indirect speech

These are activities designed to consolidate student understanding of the difference between direct and indirect speech.
• From a picture book or novel select an extract that contains both direct and indirect speech. Draw students’ attention to the use of inverted commas, or talking marks, as well as the use of other punctuation within the talking marks (for example, commas, full-stops, question marks and exclamation marks).
Then ask students to identify the actual words spoken by the character or characters and to use these to create a comic strip that shows what happens in the extract. (There are many software programs, such as Comic Creator, that will allow them to do this.)
• Select from a novel an extract in which there is a fair amount of indirect speech. Ask students to convert the indirect speech into a script. Pair students so that they can act out their script and check each other’s use of punctuation.
• Ask students to identify examples of reported speech in a newspaper or magazine interview and to give these to a peer whose task is to convert the reported speech into direct speech. For example, the reported speech might say:

• The actor said she always enjoyed coming to Australia because of the warmth and sunshine.

When written in direct speech, the item might read:

• The actor said, ‘’I always enjoy coming to Australian because of the warmth and sunshine.”

Another student could check the direct speech and provide feedback and a further activity might require students to write the questions that they think the interviewer might have asked.
• Students write a report of what was said in a role-played panel interview. Brainstorm the names of famous people, living or dead. Select six names to be on a panel and allot roles to selected students.
All students write questions that they would like to ask these people.
Each student in the audience selects a person on whom they will report, and as the role-play occurs, students take notes in order to be able to write a report of what was said. The report should contain at least two examples of reported speech (indirect speech) and two examples of direct speech. (You might consider videoing the interviews in case students need to view more than once.

The Punctuation element on http://www.otisa.com.au contains further online interactive student activities designed to consolidate an understanding of punctuation.