In this article, Rebecca Glover, online learning specialist from the charity Voice 21 shares why you should consciously integrate oracy learning into your classroom and four key tips on how you can do this
In the classroom context, oracy is both learning to and through talk. Through talk, students have the opportunity to develop and share their understanding, with both teachers and peers. However, to do this effectively, students must also be taught to talk effectively, ensuring they have the necessary skills and understanding to engage in talk for learning.
The Oracy Framework, developed in partnership by Voice 21 and Oracy Cambridge, provides a framework through which we can understand what constitutes good speaking and listening in different contexts. It breaks down the skills within oracy into four distinct but interlinked strands: physical, linguistic, cognitive and social & emotional.
Now picture a student in your school. What oracy experiences do you want them to have by the time they leave you? What oracy skills would you like for them to take out into the wider world? An effective oracy curriculum means that this isn't left to chance.
Planning your curriculum
A sustained and wide-ranging curriculum for oracy is one facet of a high-quality oracy education, as described in the Oracy Benchmarks (Voice 21, 2019). This requires schools to break down the fundamental oracy skills they want every student to have, thinking logically about how they are taught, honed and reinforced. This could be enacted through embedding oracy into the core curriculum with different subjects responsible for teaching different aspects of oracy. Or it could be through a discrete oracy curriculum taught in dedicated curriculum time, perhaps led by specialist teachers. Alternatively, it might be a combination of both approaches.
It is up to curriculum leaders to take a broad view of oracy and how it can be sequentially taught. Students should be taught how to engage in a range of different types of talk; both audience-centric presentational skills, and discursive, exploratory talk skills should be developed.
When planning how to integrate oracy into the curriculum, it’s useful to think about the three principles of intent, progression and breadth.
Intent
As above, it’s important to consider what opportunities you are aiming for your students to have. For example, do you want all your students to have spoken in front of an audience in an unfamiliar setting, engaged in storytelling, recited poetry, or participated in a debate? The aim is to create confident, agile communicators so it’s vital to think about what they will need to be successful. The emphasis should be on creating authentic, meaningful experiences for students.
Progression
Essentially, your curriculum acts as a roadmap; detailing how students will progress towards becoming accomplished speakers and listeners, capable of using their voice in a wide variety of contexts. In practice, this means breaking down the oracy skills your students need and considering how these are sequenced throughout your students’ time at school, building on previous skills.
Breadth
An oracy curriculum presents the opportunity to be creative and design a curriculum that addresses the needs of your learners, teaching them how to speak for a range of different purposes (including both exploratory and presentational talk) and in different contexts. Planned oracy opportunities could include: improving reasoning skills in Maths; using scientific vocabulary in Science or sequencing instructions in PE.
Consider this example from one of our primary schools for ideas on how to start planning your curriculum: ‘We started by planning oracy into our existing curriculum. We looked at what was taught in the foundation subjects in each year group and considered which oracy skills could be taught in conjunction with each subject. We ensured that at least twice a year students worked towards an ‘oracy outcome’, producing a scientific tutorial for younger students, for example. We also made sure that key oracy skills are revisited as students move through the school.’
Of course, every school will have different aims and how you choose to integrate oracy into your curriculum should be personalised to your setting. Start by deciding what you want your outcomes to be, and the rest should follow.
If you'd like to explore how oracy can transform learning and life chances for your students, join a network of teachers around the world on Voice 21’s International Oracy Leaders Programme, starting in May 2023.
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