heart of heartlands lessons

It has become a commonly held belief in education that, with so much focus on writing in preparation for exams, talking, and the skill of talking well, has become something that is overlooked and undervalued. In the interests of maintaining order and structure within lessons, we often prefer that our students talk less or do not talk at all and we plan our lessons with the goal of ensuring that students are able to think and write without the distraction of their own or other students’ voices. But, in the long term, is this conducive to their learning? Strategies such as Talk for Writing advocate that for children to be able to write their ideas down formally and in detail, they need to be able speak them first. If a child cannot speak in a full sentence, it is unlikely that they will be able to write in one. Explicitly focusing on oracy in the classroom and giving students clear success criteria for how they speak, will enable them to transfer these skills into their writing. This will inevitably improve their ability to write in exam settings and therefore increase exam success.

There is more to oracy, however, than exam success. Talking is at the heart of how we communicate, especially once we leave school and attempt to navigate the job market; thrive in varied social situations;and engage in society as active citizens. In Britain, 88% of employers believe that school leavers are not prepared for the world of work, with 57% citing lack of soft skills including teamwork and the ability to communicate effectively.

The way that we talk and whether or not we can communicate our ideas, feelings and experiences effectively will, rightly or wrongly, say a lot about us and create lasting impressions of us in the eyes of those who have the power to shape the path of our lives. If we want to make money, we have to verbally convince someone that we are able to do a job well. If we want to access justice, we will have to give evidence in front of a jury. If we cannot communicate properly, then our experiences will not be taken as seriously as those of people who can. If we want to access democracy, we need to be able to engage in discussion and debate. Should we want to hold our politicians to account at hustings and panel discussions, we need to be able to formulate questions that are coherent and nuanced. With voter participation at 67% for 18-24 year olds (this does not take into account the number of young people who are not registered to vote) it is essential that education empowers young people to participate fully in democracy.

In developing and rolling out the study of Citizenship amongst the vast majority of our year 9 students, the goal was not only to give them the opportunity to gain another GCSE, but to raise their cultural capital; encourage them to engage fully and critically with UK politics and give them the skills and confidence to be active and informed citizens. We knew that talking had to be at the heart of this.

When introducing our students to Citizenship as a GCSE subject, we made it explicit that as well as the content needed for the exam, they would be focusing on five key skills needed to be active citizens: the ability to challenge those in power; empathy for other people; using evidence to support ideas and arguments; resilience in the face of adversity; and oracy. We spent an entire lesson at the beginning of the year introducing students to the skill of oracy, asking them to assess themselves and others on different components of oracy as well as modelling the way that we, as teachers, use oracy skills whenever we speak.

Every Citizenship lesson includes a ‘talking point’ in which students are given an opportunity to debate and discuss a particular issue. Making this part of the routine of every lesson means that students are conscious that their oracy, as well as their writing abilities, will be developed and assessed in every lesson. Oracy in Citizenship does not only mean speaking in full sentences and using formal language, but being able to listen and respond to the words of others. A barrier that often emerges when using talk in lessons is that students are keen to share their opinions in isolation, often repeating the ideas of others or ignoring the premise of another student’s point. It is essential that developing oracy as a skill also develops students’ abilities to build on each other’s ideas make developed, nuanced arguments. We have therefore made it clear to students that when contributing to a discussion they should be doing one of four things: giving a new opinion; agreeing with another student’s point and explaining why; building on another student's’ point; or challenging what another student has said. We ask students to use their fingers to indicate which of these they would like to do when they are asking to contribute to the discussion. This enables us as teachers to guide the discussion and ensure that certain ideas are challenged or build upon. It also means that we know what students are most confident doing, and therefore where we need to explicitly teach certain oracy skills. Sentence stems are also provided to guide the way that students participate and ensure that they engage with each other’s ideas formally, respectfully and critically. These short discussions pave the way for larger debate lessons, in which students prepare arguments together in groups and present them using the structure of a formal British Parliament debate. This also engages students with the ways in which oracy is used within the political system about which they are learning.

Building routines like these into our lessons can feel awkward at first, especially when we are used to prioritising written work. Students can be reluctant to approach speaking with the same degree of challenge and scrutiny as they do their writing. They are scared of challenging each other and worried about exposing their own misconceptions and differing opinions. However, taking the time to make these expectations and criteria for speaking clear and allowing students to use metacognition to focus on and assess the ways that they speak ultimately means that our students can engage in much more nuanced and critical debates and feel confident expressing their opinions. We must create safe spaces in which they are allowed to make mistakes and change their minds. Verbal contributions are more flexible than written ones, and this can work in our favour when we want students to engage in a long term debate.

Ultimately, as well as sending our students out into the world with the qualifications that they need to be successful in the next stage of their education and employment, we must also see it as our responsibility to nurture empowered and engaged citizens, who can hold their own in discussions; challenge injustice and use their own voices to ensure equal representation in democracy.