TP-14.4

This low-stakes analogue grammar game sharpens pupils’ minds and leads to greater engagement Human SENTENCES P hilipPullmanonce wroteof an“attitude …towards language” engenderedwhen adults give time to sharingpicture bookswithchildren,whereby “you trust it and find it exciting and full of possibilities and fun, something toplaywithand speculatewith and take riskswithanddelight in.” Wewholeheartedly agreewith MrPullman’s views on taking timeover delicious picturebooks andwant this feeling for language for all children; it inspiresmuch of ourworkwithschools. One wayof enhancing this attitude– particularlybut not exclusively for the growingnumber of children whodon’t have adult support like this at home– is through wordgames: low-stakesways of tryingout newvocabulary and grammatical structures, testing themfor impact onmeaning and delighting inoutcomes. Physical manipulation Aformof grammar and vocabularyplay that encourages languagemanipulation ina 58 | www.teachwire.net very literal sense is the ‘human sentence’: a stripof paper onto whichamainclausehas been written, heldat the front of the class by children, towhich further words, phrases andclauses maybe added (plus appropriate punctuation, of course). This practicewas commonplace around 15years ago, butwhenwe model it now, colleagues tend to havenever seen the strategy, or they remark, “Don’t knowwhywe stoppeddoing that!” Andwe really shouldn’t have. Inour experience, thephysical manipulationof sentences in this way leads togreater engagement, andbetter application inwriting, thandigital alternatives. Even whenchildrencome to the front tomoveparts of sentences onan interactiveboard, it just doesn’t seemtohave the same impact. Andcompared towritten grammatical exercises?Well, there isnocomparison. The strategy takes abit of in-class training, naturally. Childrenneed tohold thepaper strips fairly steadily, and theyneed tobe ready to join the sentence with their suggestions promptly; theyneed towrite clearlyon miniwhiteboards (until they can, you’ll have todo this – see ‘tips for success’, right).We find that these sessions runbestwhen the class is clusteredon the carpet, as it takes less time to swapandaddchildren to the sentence at the front. Meaning shifts The crucial thing is that you take the time toexplore the shifts inmeaning that additions and swaps create. For example, imagine two sentence strips displaying a mainclause each: theBillyGoat tiptoed theTroll heard him Note that there isno sentence demarcationas this fixes the sentence. The childrenmust now tryout different coordinating conjunctions (‘and’, ‘but’, ‘so’) to join the twoclauses, andyou can lead thediscussionon the impact of each. Youmight then extend this by looking at theuseof subordinating conjunctions like ‘because’, ‘when’, and ‘although’: wherewouldeachof thesework best for themeaningwe’re trying toachieve? Similarly, the arrangement of adverbials aroundamainclause maybe examined for emphasis andevenambiguity: thewolf huffed and puffed (main clause) in front of the door (adverbial forwhere) while the piggies cowered (adverbial forwhen) Fromthis, we canarrange: While the piggies cowered, the wolf huffed and puffed in front of the door. And: While the piggies cowered in front of the door, the wolf huffed and puffed. Now explore the impact of a comma after ‘cowered’ in that CHR I ST INE CHEN & L INDSAY P I CKTON