Oracy

Videoing and evaluating oracy in the classroom
Staff at Eastwood Primary School help pupils review and evaluate their interactions
in lessons. Ultimately teachers feel this underpins learning across the board whilst
enhancing the quality of pupils’ talk and social interactions.
“Every classroom has the talk rules. We video the children
doing a talk activity, and we ask the children, ‘what do you
think our talk rules should be in this classroom?’, and they
come up with the talk rules. They say, ‘Miss we don’t think
we made eye contact with each other, and we think we need
to work on building on each other’s ideas because we tend to
deviate or divert off task. We feel like we need to contribute
more. We feel like we need to give extended answers, and
build on each other’s ideas.’ They come up with those”
Riz Saleem, year 6 class teacher
Civic engagement and empowerment
“Talk is a fundamental prerequisite for democratic engagement”
Professor Robin Alexander xx
Oracy provides an opportunity for pupils to
reflect on the nature of society itself. A smallscale
experimental study by Green and Klug
found that debating activities could help
students engage with and change their mind
regarding social issues. 84 Meanwhile a large
body of qualitative research suggests that
structured and purposeful classroom dialogue
between pupils and with teachers can help
broaden students’ awareness of social issues
and differences between social groups. 85,86,87,88
“Oracy is important […because] it
represents a set of essential life skills
which are useful both for the individual
and also to the society in which they live”
Professor Neil Mercer xxi
Teacher and author Martin Robinson explains
that, to a degree, civic engagement and
empowerment is woven into the history
of oracy, saying:
xx
Key informant interview.
xxi
Key informant interview.
Oracy can also help empower students to interact
with society. Reflecting on over 15 years of research
into ‘Accountable Talk’ (an approach to teaching
that promotes participants’ equity and rigorous
academic discussion), Michaels et al. note that such
practices can promote respectful and grounded
discussion, partly because pupils become more
equipped to build on one another’s contributions. 89
In their systematic review of studies on citizenship
education, Deakin Crick et al. suggest that skills
such as negotiating, constructing arguments,
debating, and listening to and building on the ideas
of others play a fundamental role in citizenship
education and, therefore, in teaching young people
how to be active citizens. 90 Andrews goes further,
suggesting that democracy can function only if
young people learn to argue effectively. 91 Writing
about intercultural education Trethewey and Menzies
argue that pupils from different backgrounds
must interact with one another in order to build
understanding and tolerance. 92
“You’re in the moment of actually putting yourself
on the line and having to communicate with
the world. You’re reaching out to the world.
Instead of being a private process, it’s a public
process…. [It’s] the idea of community, to reach
out to and to build for the future”
Martin Robinson, teacher & author xxii
34
xxii
Key informant interview.