Say It Board

About this tool

Say It Board gives a newly arrived child a voice on their first morning. Sixty-eight pictures in six small groups — and the eight that matter most stay on the screen at all times, in the same place, whatever else is showing. Yes. No. I need help. I don’t understand. I need the toilet. Stop. Please look at me. I have finished. One tap says it out loud, in the language of the room. It is not vocabulary teaching and it is not a test; it is a way to be heard on day one, before a single word of the new language has been learned.

The pictures come first, and that is a decision rather than a style. A drawing is understood by a child whatever they speak, so the board works for the Ukrainian, Arabic, Turkish or Somali child who arrives in a German, Swedish or Dutch classroom in November — the child this is actually for. If their home language happens to be one of our eleven you can add it, and every card then carries two lines. That is a bonus and never the premise, and when it is there the home language is printed first, at the same size and in the same colour, because a child's own language is not the smaller one.

Nothing about the child is measured. There is no level, no score, no progress bar, and no record of which cards were pressed — every product in this space keeps one, and it is the harmful part. The board is free and stays free, and so are the cut-out cards for a lanyard, because a child’s voice is not something to sell and the printed card is simply the board on paper for the corridor and the playground. The Teacher plan adds the teacher’s side: the wall poster, the two-way sheet for the family, and keeping more than three of your own phrases.

How to use it in class

• Open it on the class screen, or hand a tablet to the child. The eight most urgent cards are already there and never move; the six groups below hold the rest.
• The child taps a picture. The device says the whole phrase out loud in the language of your classroom, calmly, so the room hears the request rather than the accent.
• If the child's home language is one of the eleven, tap “Add the child's language” once. Every card then shows both lines, home language first.
• Leave it open on a tablet beside their table for the first weeks. It works best when nobody has to ask for it.
• Print the cut-out cards free, so the phrases go with the child to the corridor, the playground and home.
• Tap “For the teacher” to add a phrase this class needs — pick an opening, finish it in the child’s voice, choose a picture. Three are free to keep.

Classroom ideas

• Show the whole class the board on the first morning and tap two or three cards together, so everyone learns what the new child will be tapping. Then it is a shared thing rather than a special thing.
• Pair the child with a buddy who holds the tablet for the first week. Tapping a card together is the easiest first conversation two children who share no language can have.
• Use it yourself in the other direction: tap “Where should I go?” and point, and you have explained the corridor without a word of shared language.
• Put the printed card on the desk and a second one in the school bag. The phrases matter most at the moments the screen is not there — the toilet, the playground, the pick-up.