The Importance of Oracy in Language Development: A Conversation With a Colleague

Shawnda Fukano, a literacy coach and contributing writer to TWTBlog, chats with Stacey to expand on her blog post about oracy and its importance for multilingual learners. The discussion covers various aspects of oracy development, including success stories, challenges, and practical classroom implementation strategies. Shawnda shares her experiences balancing vocabulary and language structure instruction, using mentor texts, and incorporating active listening skills. The episode also delves into hands-on strategies for integrating oracy into daily classroom activities and effective methods for assessing students' oracy skills.

Shawnda Fukano is a primary literacy coach at a dual-language school in the Highline School District in Seattle, Washington. She supports teachers and students in developing biliteracy in both English and Spanish. With a passion for educating multilingual learners since 2004, Shawnda has taught 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade newcomers and served as the Dual Language Coordinator. She has also taught English to adult refugees from Burma. Shawnda is a National Board Certified Teacher in English as a New Language and OCDE Project GLAD® Trainer. She lives in Seattle with her husband, son, and twin daughters. She writes slices of her life as a mom and teacher at ShawndaStories.

Go Deeper:

• Building Bigger Vocabularies Through Books
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
• Chants for Writing: Support Routines, Conventions, and Craft
• More about Isabel L. Beck
• Oracy: What & How
• Read more posts about working with multilingual learners and on translanguaging on Two Writing Teachers. 
• Strategies for Working with Multilingual Learners episode
• Vocabulary Games

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