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Expressive Language Difficulties
Students with expressive language difficulties have problems using language – spoken or
written.
They may:
• Have a limited vocabulary
• Take a long time to organise words into a sentence
• Have a problem sequencing events and ideas appropriately
• Muddle pronouns, tenses, prepositions.
• Have difficulty making links and connections with language
• Have problems giving specific answers or explanations
• Miss out words or put them in the wrong order
• Find it hard to express emotions verbally
• Have trouble learning new words, e.g. names of people and objects
• Uses made-up words which are almost appropriate, e.g. ‘window worker man’
Speech & Language Support Service - Secondary
Teacher Strategies
• Act as a good language model, keeping sentences short, clear and concise
• Give the student space, time and opportunity to initiate a conversation
• Avoid correction of errors, instead model back the student’s sentence in the correct
form, expanding a little
• Minimise the use of direct questions. Allow time for the student to initiate and then
respond to the initiation by commenting. Basic rule ‘ Comment more than question’
• Use colour coding to highlight grammatical word endings e.g. tense endings, plurals or
other features e.g. question marks, commas
• Structure written work e.g. ‘sentence starters’, ‘tops & tails’, cloze etc
• Encourage the use of Mind Maps or similar techniques to help develop vocabulary
Student Strategies
• Try to initiate a conversation a day
• Practice retelling what happened on a TV show you watched
• When you learn a new word, think of a visual clue and try and use it regularly
• Use word links sheets, mind maps, spider diagrams to remember/ revise words
• If you cannot think of the word you want – try cueing yourself in with ‘tip of the tongue
cues’ e.g. the sound it begins with, what the word looks like etc