Henry: Explaining Halo

There are lots of interesting features of Henry’s explanations. The following is a list of some possible ideas; you may have thought of some additional features too. You may wish to compare your observations and thoughts to the feedback below. This feedback is based on our observations and thoughts, and is not necessarily a 'correct' answer. Your own observations are very important and will reflect your own learning and experiences.

A. Overall coherency

• The overall coherency of Henry’s explanation is quite poor. The listener does not reach the end of the explanation with a clear idea of how to play the game.

• Henry shows little evidence of sequencing and it is not always clear what Henry is referring to: for example, he answers the initial question “how do you play it?” with an explanation of certain key functions, but does not explain that this is what he is doing.

• There is some evidence that Henry may have difficulty in planning his responses: he revises his description of the story of the game.

B. Sentences used in the explanation

• Henry’s sentences are mostly quite simple with very few subordinate clauses. All are in the present tense, although it must be noted that the absence of other tenses does not mean that Henry is only capable of using the present tense.

C. The words that are used

• Only four of the words in the sample have more than two syllables, eg ‘November’ and ‘criminals’.

• Henry uses no technical or subject-specific vocabulary in his explanation.

D. Body language and other non-verbal characteristics

• Henry demonstrates good turn-taking skills and uses appropriate eye contact throughout his explanation.

E. Any other features

• It may be difficult for the listener to follow Henry’s explanation if they are not used to his speech patterns. He a speech sound disorder, which can make it difficult to hear accurately the words which he is using.