Oracy

To quote Margot Thomas, paraphrasing James Britton,

‘Reading and writing float on a sea of oracy’.

Well-developed oracy skills are fundamental to the realisation of the four purposes, as we learn to talk, and learn through talk.  Systematic teaching, application and development of listening and speaking skills across a wide range of opportunities will bring a wide range of other benefits to learners, including improved wellbeing, self-regulation, collaboration and leadership.

However, more children are arriving at school at a pre-verbal stage.  This delay in early language development requires skilled and systematic approaches to prevent long-term limits to child development and progress.  Voice 21 strategies can be effective once pupils are verbal.  These include teaching different roles in different group sizes, supportive structures and self and peer assessment in engaging listening and speaking activities.

It is important to stress that listening and speaking are often lumped together, but listening skills need to be taught explicitly and distinctly if oracy skills are to flourish.  The Preseli and Caer Elen cluster’s collaborative enquiry into this area is an excellent example of locally developed powerful evidence.

Welsh Government funded a collaboration between Bangor University, GWE and schools resulting in the Ein Llais Ni website and resources published to all schools in Wales in summer 2024.  The resource is in Welsh but Google will translate the site for non-Welsh-speakers, (a few mistranslations, eg orality instead of oracy, do not hinder understanding).  For schools who have worked with Voice 21, most of the research, strategies and approaches to implementation suggested will be familiar.  If you are not familiar with Voice 21, this gives a good insight without membership fees.

Strategies being used to good effect in schools include:

●  The core strategies advocated by Voice 21 are being used in 36 Pembrokeshire schools from 2022-23, making use of the oracy framework to plan and evaluate progress from starting points.  Chatta is being trialled alongside this with pupils in EY and LRC settings.

●  Welsh oracy milestones inspired by the St Mark’s approach are in development that link to the curriculum resources on Y Gromlech.

●  Wider development of oracy skills across the curriculum exemplified through resources such as DIALLS (LLC/humanities) and Explorify (science and technology).

●  Support for learners of French and Spanish in developing accurate pronunciation is available via native speaker sound files in PowerLanguage.

●   A pilot of comparative judgment for oracy in Neyland and PDCS supported the national findings that this is a viable way to assess oracy - this is in development with RM.  The Oracy Toolkit from Cambridge University is a useful starting point when assessing oracy.

In 2021, Estyn recommended that primary schools: support learners’ early understanding of language by modelling and demonstrating a gesture or movement that conveys the meaning of words; beneficial extra-curricular opportunities, including within the local community, for learners to develop their language skills; use rich and varied contexts, such as participating in the Urdd, to teach learners specifically how to listen and talk; listening and speaking are skills to be developed in their own right, rather than as a support to reading and writing.

• Appreciate and prioritise the critical role that oracy plays in improving, eg communication, wellbeing and human development, critical thinking, collaboration and academic success.

• Provide training and support for teachers to develop oracy skills and related teaching strategies, aligned to an oracy framework, whilst developing oracy assessment tools to evaluate and track progress over time.

• Establish a learning environment/school culture that encourages active and insightful listening, open communication and discussion, and respectful but meaningful debate.

• Teach students specific oracy skills such as active listening, turn-taking, discussion, constructing coherent arguments and debate, and informal and formal presentation.

• Develop quality talk, collaboration and peer-to-peer learning, such as structured conversations that promote deep thinking and engagement, deeper questioning and an openness to gaining wider and deeper perspectives beyond your current thinking.

• Integrate oracy development, including a rich vocabulary, and the assessment of oracy into the curriculum, ensuring that speaking and listening activities are embedded across AOLEs and in authentic, real-world contexts, such as the Global Goals and UNCRC.

• Encourage and schedule regular feedback and reflection on how well speaking and listening skills are developing, allowing learners to identify areas for improvement.

• Involve families and the wider community in supporting oracy development, to provide authentic contexts and audiences and to emphasise its importance beyond the classroom.