talk 4 write

• The Literacy Year

Talk for Writing

From Talk for Writing

Resource type: CPD resource, CPD course

Price band: £££

Key stage: KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4, KS5

Region(s): All of UK

Talk for Writing is a framework for teaching writing that is based on the premise that children must first internalise the language patterns and structures needed to write by ‘talking the text’ and close reading of quality examples.

Talk for Writing works best as a whole school approach. Training to help schools implement the Talk for Writing approach is available from the Talk for Writing team. For the most effective results, they recommend a sequence of training and support that can be delivered in-school or online.  Tailored consultancy packages are also available.

For schools interested in finding out more about the Talk for Writing approach, there are introductory sessions available at in-person conferences around the country and online. Online sessions include:

• Talk for Writing for EYFS and KS1
• Talk for Writing in KS2
• Talk for reading
• Talk for Writing in Science
• Writing Poetry Across the Primary School
• Talk for Writing at secondary level

In addition to the training packages, there are a number of Talk for Writing training centres around the country. These are schools that have successfully implemented the Talk for Writing approach and who can offer further training or the opportunity to see Talk for Writing in action in the classroom. A list of the centres is available on the Talk for Writing website.

Cost:  Online courses cost from £100 + VAT. In-person conferences cost from £215 + VAT per person (10% discount for multiple bookings from one school).

About Talk for Writing:  The Talk for Writing approach was developed by Pie Corbett, supported by Julia Strong. Pie Corbett is a former teacher, head teacher, lecturer and English inspector. He is also a poet, author and editor of over 250 books, including Jumpstart! Literacy . Julia Strong specialises in literacy across the curriculum in secondary schools and is the author of the highly acclaimed Talk for Writing in Secondary Schools .

Literacy Hive Likes:

• The Talk for Writing team is made up of experienced teachers, English subject leaders and consultants.
• A key aspect of the Talk for Writing approach is pupil engagement and enjoyment.
• The Talk for Writing website provides access to a number of resources, including Impact Reports and case studies, books about the Talk for Writing approach, toolkits and planning resources.

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Learning Difficulties

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Talk for Writing is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills.

“Unsurprisingly, the best writers in any class are always readers. Reading influences writing- the richness, depth and breadth of reading determines the writer that we become.” Pie Corbett, Talk For Writing.

Many students find the writing process, both fiction and non-fiction, extremely challenging. These students may have wonderful ideas, but struggle to get their thoughts onto the page. Even those who read reasonably well can experience difficulty with written expression.  As children read and are read to, they store patterns that form the building blocks of written expression. In order to write sentence patterns appropriate to a given text (e.g. a recount starts with ‘when, who, what and where’ elements) children need to have these patterns modelled with multiple opportunities to say them before being expected to write them. In Talk For Writing, the process of “Imitation – Innovation – Invention” is explored. Students learn to orally recite and act out popular stories through listening and reading. The teacher maps out the story using pictures to aid students’ memory. The repetition allows the students to interact with the text and helps them to internalise the language patterns and text features. Students are then taught to use the underlying structure of the original text to create their own version on a different topic. Over time, they move towards independent writing as they create texts about their own topics.

Talk for Writing is a unique process that uses spoken activities to develop writing skills. Quality writing is created by first expanding and developing students’ oral language skills and then teaching the necessary steps for exceptional sentence, paragraph and text construction.

Talk for Writing has the potential to dramatically improve students’ writing. The approach also offers students with learning and language difficulties an opportunity to develop stronger writing skills. Feedback from students indicates that they find Talk for Writing ‘fun, engaging and motivating.’  

More information about Talk for Writing

Listen to Pie Corbett, the developer of the Talk for Writing discuss the T4W approach and the success of this program in classrooms across the UK and Australia. 

Training for Teachers

DSF runs in-house workshops on implementing the Talk for Writing approach. These two day workshops offer teachers an overview of the Talk for Writing approach and provide an opportunity to trial each of the component steps of this exceptionally effective instructional approach. All training is administered by a qualified Talk for Writing presenter who has been trained and had experience implementing the approach. Talk for Writing workshops are typically run over two full days – the dates of any upcoming, in-house workshops on T4W are listed at the bottom of this page.

DSF also offers in-school training on implementing the Talk for Writing  approach upon request. In-school training allows for many teachers from your school to receive high-quality training and is encouraged if you are looking to implement the Talk for Writing approach in a school-wide setting.

Individual Training

For details about future face-to-face training, please view our current PL calendar.

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Talk for Writing – Cold Task

A few weeks ago I shared with you a new approach that I’ll be using to teach writing. The Talk 4 Writing approach moves from oral language to written language and is suitable to use with both fiction and non fiction texts. Have a look at my article to find out more about each of the stages:

How To Teach Children To Write

I’ve started using Talk 4 Writing (T4W) with a group of 2 girls in year 7. Our sessions go for 45 minutes, so the first 30 minutes will be our phonics time. Then I will spend 15 minutes weekly working on our writing. Using T4W this way it will take approximately 6 months to get through all the stages.

Before beginning with T4W it is important to set a pre-unit assessment, which is called a ‘cold task’.

The cold task helps to inform your planning, and allows you to set your key goals for grammar and writing. There is no teacher input into the cold task, you just get your students to write.

Pre-assessment: cold task

The girls have been learning about report writing at school, so I thought I’d start with a non-fiction text. I decided to use a familiar topic for the girls when setting the cold task. I had a picture of a kitten glued to a piece of paper and asked the girls to write for me information about cats as I would like to know more about cats. That was the only input I gave and then set 15 minutes for them to write.

Below are pictures of what each girl wrote during the 15 minutes.

Grammar & writing goals

As I’m using T4W in a modified way, I don’t have time to set too many writing goals. However, there are a few things that jumped out at me when analysing each sample.

1. Sentence and paragraph structure It was fantastic to see both girls include paragraphs and attempt to structure their writing. However, they do need assistance with constructing simple, compound and complex sentences. They also require help with the overall structure of a report and what information is included in the opening sentence / paragraph, body and concluding paragraph.

2. Vocabulary development / descriptive writing Both students have made an effort to incorporate descriptive writing, however their use of vocabulary is quite limited. For example, “super cuddly”; “super cute”; “super, sharp claws”; “megga awesome”; “very playful”; “so cute”; “so loveable”. They require assistance with selecting precise words as well as using adjectives & adverbs effectively.

6 month overview template

I’ve also put together a document that tracks exactly what I’ll be doing each week for the duration of the program. I’ll share parts of this as I go along. Below is a screen shot of the information I have for week 1 – the cold task (click on the picture to enlarge it).

Stay tuned for the next post which will share with you my ‘hook’ and introducing the text map to the students.

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Gemini Advanced vs ChatGPT Plus: Which is better?

• Gemini Advanced costs $20 monthly with constantly updated training data, making it better at answering current event questions.
• ChatGPT Plus is $20 too and creates better graphic designs but has limitations like poor text quality.
• Gemini Advanced is faster at generating results and provides clearer, more concise written content than ChatGPT.

Listen long enough to the buzz about artificial intelligence, and the names ChatGPT and Gemini will stand out from the noise. The AI chatbots from OpenAI and Google are some of the biggest players in the space. However, asking both the same question may yield wildly different answers due to their use of different training datasets.

Both Google's Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus subscriptions cost around $20 every month for access to the full list of features. (Notably, ChatGPT does not have a free trial, while Gemini offers two months free). However, the two chatbots use different training datasets, which can significantly influence the responses they generate. GPT-4's dataset was trained on approximately 570 GB of data, but this knowledge extends only through April 2023, requiring the integrated Bing browsing tool to find facts about recent events that occurred after that cutoff.

Google's Gemini Advanced does not use a static training database; it is constantly being updated, which means the chatbot is better at answering questions about current events.

However, that's not the only way the two platforms differ. I posed the same questions to ChatGPT Plus and Google Gemini Advanced, with topics and tasks ranging across art, politics, math, and ethics. The chatbots often churned out wildly different answers -- and those responses offer a clear indication of which platform to try.

I tried ChatGPT Plus. Here's everything it can do

Image test: chatgpt plus produces more art, gemini advanced has paused image generation of people.

First, I asked both platforms to create a watercolor image of a woman holding flowers . ChatGPT Plus delivered two different options with soft, flowing brushstrokes , which helped obliterate the details in the face and hands that image generators aren't great at yet.

Gemini Advanced declined to produce anything. Google temporarily removed the option to generate images of people in February 2024 after complaints that it made historical depictions of the Founding Fathers inaccurate by depicting multiple races. Racism is an issue among many artificial intelligence platforms. Google explains that Gemini Advanced was programmed to represent a wide range of people but admitted that diversity-focused programming created issues when requesting images of someone of a specific demographic.

Since Gemini Advanced couldn't create a person, I tried just asking for watercolor paintings of spring flowers. Both did a pretty good job, but Gemini Advanced produced three paintings faster than ChatGPT Plus created one option. Frustratingly, however, Gemini Advanced seemed to only produce square images, even when I specifically requested a different aspect ratio.

I next switched from paintings to graphic design and quickly realized that Gemini Advanced wouldn't actually design anything. Instead, Gemini made a list of suggestions for how to design it, wrote the content, and even suggested software and places to hire a freelance graphic designer.

ChatGPT Plus, on the other hand, will create graphic designs but often probably shouldn't. I asked it to create an infographic about what to wear and what not to wear to a family photo shoot. The graphics looked quite good, but much of the text was gibberish. The inability to create text in graphics is a known shortcoming for AI generators. I then asked it to remove the text entirely. While the resulting graphic was good, it included both the dos and don'ts in the graphic without differentiating which was which. I then asked it to create a postcard advertising my photography , but the results were straight out of a horror film. The faces were so wrong they looked like decaying corpses. One groom was holding the hands of two brides, one of whom had an arm coming straight out of her bosom.

ChatGPT Plus will produce more types of graphics . However, the types of images that Gemini Advanced refuses to produce are the same types that the other AI failed miserably at creating.

What is Gemini? Google's AI model and GPT-4 alternative explained

Writing test: gemini advanced gets right to the point, chatgpt plus tends to be more long-winded.

I asked both programs to write me a 500-word short story about a haunted house. Both followed the instructions well. However, neither came up with anything beyond the usual haunted house tropes, as AI is more a remix of ideas than a creator of something entirely new. ChatGPT Plus's story felt clichéd and was littered with passive voice, while Gemini Advanced did a better job showing the details rather than offering a bland retelling of the story.

Transitioning from creative to professional writing, I then asked both platforms to write a sample cover letter for a software engineer looking for a job. Both produced a rather bland template but included spots to insert specific details. Gemini's letter was shorter, more to the point, and followed up with tips for writing a cover letter. ChatGPT's output was longer and redundant -- I would have cut out at least a paragraph from what was generated. I then asked both programs to write a letter of resignation and a professional email, and the results were similar, with ChatGPT Plus being a bit longer (if the prompt isn't limited to a specific word count) and Gemini Advanced getting right to the point .

While both platforms can handle mundane tasks like writing emails, I preferred Gemini Advanced's results . The Google-owned AI was straight to the point for business writing, while the short story it generated also felt more refined, whereas ChatGPT's felt more like a first draft.

How to use Google's Gemini AI from the web or your phone

Advice test: gemini advanced answers with linked resources, but chatgpt plus is sometimes less frustrating.

I then asked both platforms a range of different questions. First, I asked for advice on avoiding bears during a hike . Both offered some of the same advice, but Gemini Advanced linked to sources where I could find out why exactly bear bells don't work. ChatGPT Plus sometimes has links at the end but did not for that specific question.

I then asked them to solve one of my fifth grader's math problems . (I hated learning fractions the first time around, and the second time isn't any more enjoyable.) Both platforms got the correct answer, but ChatGPT Plus said simplifying 10/3 to 3 1/3 was optional, while Gemini Advanced called it an improper fraction and explained that you should simplify it. Both initially wrote the answer as a decimal until I specifically asked for an answer written as a fraction.

Gemini's explanation of how to solve the math problem was only three steps long; ChatGPT's was six. Just like with the writing tasks, ChatGPT Plus was unnecessarily wordy, and I thought Gemini's shorter description was easier to follow.

I then asked questions about current events -- which actually took multiple tries to find a question that both platforms would attempt to answer. Gemini Advanced wouldn't answer questions about politics , while ChatGPT Plus didn't know that the prime minister of Haiti had resigned. This was somewhat expected as ChatGPT is trained on older data, but it did not even attempt to use the Bing search plugin to verify if the answer was current.

I finally found a question about current events that both platforms would answe r-- sort of. I asked about moon landings , looking specifically for the February 2024 landing that happened after ChatGPT's training data was updated. ChatGPT Plus answered immediately with a number followed by an explanation, including the latest Odysseus mission. Gemini erred on the side of caution and told me that there were six crewed and multiple uncrewed landings. I asked again, and Gemini said that the question was "a bit complex to answer definitively." I never did get a number -- though I did get several links -- but when I finally adjusted my question to "successful uncrewed soft landings," the most recent February 2024 landing was included, which is what I was looking for.

6 Google Gemini prompts to try for the best results

Speed test: gemini advanced is faster, chatgpt plus / gpt-4 is limited to 40 messages every 3 hours.

One of the main purposes of generative AI is to handle tasks that we don't want to deal with -- such as fifth-grade math -- or to accelerate more mundane processes. With the latter in mind, I submitted several prompts simultaneously to see which platform would generate a result first. Gemini Advanced consistently responded first , even creating three watercolor paintings before ChatGPT Plus had completed one. Gemini Advanced was also noticeably quicker at solving math questions.

The results are unsurprising once you delve into the data. GPT-4 is limited to 40 messages every three hours, whereas Gemini Advanced can handle up to 60 requests per minute.

One of the main purposes of generative AI is to handle tasks that we don't want to handle -- like 5th-grade math -- or to speed up the more mundane processes. With the latter in mind, I sent across many of the prompts at the same time, looking to see which platform generated a result first. Gemini Advanced answered first nearly every time, including creating three watercolor paintings before ChatGPT Plus had finished with one. Gemini Advanced was also noticeably faster at answering math questions.

10 ChatGPT extensions to try and what exactly they can do

Ethics test: chatgpt plus refuses to copy artists' style, and gemini advanced won't talk about politics.

Ethics should be a key consideration when comparing different AI platforms. If you refuse to use an AI that scrapes training data from the web without the owner's permission, then you're still out of luck here. Both are also capable of answering questions incorrectly, so factual data should always be double-checked when working with any AI chatbot. But what about ethics and how each chatbot answers key questions?

When prompted, Gemini Advanced created a landscape painting in the style of Picasso. ChatGPT Plus, on the other hand, responded that requesting a specific artist's style violated content policies. It then suggested creating a painting "inspired by early 20th-century art movements that emphasize geometric shapes, fragmented forms, and vibrant colors." The result was similar to Gemini Advanced's, but the prompt was not connected to the artist's name. That courtesy seems to be limited to visual arts. Neither one refused when I asked them to write in the style of Stephen King.

Overall, Gemini's approach is to disable options that aren't quite right. It won't respond to questions about politics and has disabled generative images of people until some diversity issues can be remedied. However, ChatGPT Plus won't produce results in a specific visual artist's style .

How to master GPT-4 in ChatGPT: Prompts, tips, and tricks

Privacy test: chatgpt lets you delete more data, gemini will keep data for up to three years.

Another consideration is how your data is used. Both platforms retain data for later training. Some Gemini prompts will be viewed by human staff, so users should not share personal data on the platform. Gemini Advanced can keep the data for up to three years, though it is not associated with your account that far out. In comparison, ChatGPT allows you to turn off chat history , which means you will not be able to go back to previous chats, but the company has less of your data. With this setting, ChatGPT deletes your conversations once every 30 days . Your data is still used for training, but not for the long term.

Google launches Gemini AI, its answer to GPT-4, and you can try it now

Extra features test: gemini advanced has more, but chatgpt plus does have a wealth of plugins.

As part of the Google family, Gemini Advanced can be found in more than just the web browser chat window. Gemini can assist you with writing or proofreading in Gmail, as well as in apps like Google Docs. integrated into Pixel devices , though iOS users can still access the AI inside the Google app. The $20-a-month subscription also includes 2TB of cloud storage with Google One .

ChatGPT Plus doesn't offer the same integrations, but with a longer history, it boasts a more extensive list of different custom GPTs for users to explore. In the Explore GPTs tab , you can discover anything from tutors to coding to coloring book pages. You can find custom GPTs from companies like Kayak, Canva, Khan Academy, and more. With ChatGPT web browser extensions , you can also access a range of tools that work directly inside a web browser. GPT-4 also supports the uploading of JPGs and PDFs, whereas Gemini Advanced is limited to image uploads. ChatGPT has both a web application and a dedicated app that, like Gemini, can also use voice.

Verdict: Which is AI chatbot subscription is best?

I prefer gemini, but chatgpt is needed for ai image generation.

Google's Gemini Advanced produced clearer, more concise written content. I preferred the written results of Gemini Advanced over ChatGPT. The Google-owned chatbot also had the fastest performance out of the two. The fact that it comes from a large tech company also gives it clear benefits like 2 TB of cloud storage included in the price and integration into Google Docs and other apps.

While I preferred the results from Gemini Advanced a majority of the time, ChatGPT Plus was capable of more tasks. It can, for example, produce graphic designs that Gemini refused. It's worth noting, however, that the types of images Gemini won't create are also the types of images that ChatGPT struggles to produce acceptable results with, including images of people and graphics that contain text. However, ChatGPT also allows users to delete their data every 30 days, while Google keeps it for up to three years. ChatGPT's longer history also means that it offers a lot of different custom plug-ins that are tailored for a specific task.

Overall, Google's Gemini Advanced is the subscription that I would pick if I wanted an AI to help type out emails or decipher math homework. ChatGPT Plus would be my choice for generating images using DALL-E, using specific plug-ins, or for greater control over what happens to your data.

Q: What is Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus?

Gemini is Google's AI chatbot that's integrated with Google products, and Advanced is the AI's paid subscription tier. ChatGPT Plus, on the other hand, is a paid subscription to OpenAI's ChatGPT. Like Advanced, it's more powerful and has more features and capabilities.

Q: How much do Gemini Advanced and ChatGPT Plus cost each?

Here's the current pricing information:

• Gemini Advanced: Included in the Google One AI Premium Plan at $19.99 per month. This plan also offers other Google AI benefits and increased Google One storage.
• ChatGPT Plus: Costs $20 per month. This plan offers access to DALL-E image generation and the GPT store.

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