We Need To Talk: What does the Oracy Education Commission’s report mean for Literacy Tree schools?

Last month saw the publication of We Need to Talk, the report of the Independent Oracy Education Commission on the future of Oracy Education in England. Oracy is something very close to our hearts here at Literacy Tree.  The Commission’s report, with contributors from across a diverse range of perspectives and organisations, argues that it all begins with talk and we couldn’t agree more. As the report says, ‘Oracy is intrinsic to children’s early development, to the testing of thought, to social and emotional well-being, to confidence, agency and the ability to challenge or debate important issues in civil and constructive ways’ (p.7). The Oracy Education Commission calls for Oracy to become the fourth ‘R’ in status, joining Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. So how can schools using our Teach through a Text approach be reassured that our resources and approach have you covered with all things oracy? Below I will take you through the definition used in this new report and break it down to demonstrate how oracy is at the heart of all that we do.

In the report, oracy is defined as articulating ideas, developing understanding and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication. Oracy is broken down into the following three ‘interrelated, overlapping and mutually reinforcing components’ (p.14):

• Learning to talk, listen and communicate: the development of children’s speaking, listening and communication skills.
• Learning through talk, listening and communication: the use of talk or dialogue to foster and deepen children’s learning.
• Learning about talk, listening and communication: building knowledge and understanding of speaking, listening and communication in its many contexts.

Learning through talk, listening and communication: the use of talk or dialogue to foster and deepen children’s learning

At Literacy Tree, exploratory talk, dialogic teaching and the use of spoken language are central pedagogies. Using high-quality literature as a springboard for reading and writing encourages deep discussion, allowing children to explore themes, characters, and plots thoughtfully. It also enables so many excellent opportunities for examining and exploring together the linguistic and grammatical choices made by authors for impact and how we as writers might choose to apply grammatical tools from our ‘writer toolkits’ for effect in our own writing. Questions and discussion prompts are woven throughout our materials to guide meaningful dialogue, enabling children to express their thoughts and listen to others and to interact critically and constructively with one another. Our planning includes vocabulary-focused resources (such as the Zone of Relevance and Shades of Meaning paired or group activities) that actively engage children in discussion about the effectiveness of words used with clear purpose in mind that deepens their linguistic understanding.

We want children to be able to apply their knowledge of the National Curriculum for English with flexibility so that they can achieve their aims of informing, persuading, instructing, entertaining or explaining to their intended audience with agency and clarity. This is why our Writing Roots are driven by audience and purpose and children are consistently encouraged to consider how they might apply their knowledge for impact.  When children talk critically with one another about why they have made the writerly decisions they have, editing and adapting their writing in response to these forensic and strategic discussions, the quality and effectiveness of their writing is considerably enhanced.

Of course, we couldn’t talk about learning through talk within our Writing Roots without mentioning the Discovery Points, used to immerse children into the ‘bubble of a book’ at the beginning of each sequence of learning. Whether this be setting the classroom up as a circus to kickstart the Leon and the Place Between Writing Root, the suspicious appearance of a battered suitcase in The Arrival or having a cloud arrive in a box as part of Lizzy and the Cloud, the awe and wonder created by these unpredictable goings-on lend themselves excellently to exploratory talk that encourages questioning and interrogative discussion. In these immersion points, the teacher is positioned as a facilitator of the conversations to enable children to explore through thoughtful and critical child-empowered discussions.

‘I wonder…’ is a favourite sentence opener during these lessons and our Talk to the Hand resource and supportive sentence starter prompt examples within our planning seek to support these question-led discussions and signal the significance of this exploratory discussion to enable children to express their thoughts and listen to others.

The power of drama and arts participation are also aspects of oracy signalled by the Commission as having impact on both cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes. This, again, is something very close to our hearts. You will find drama positioned throughout our Writing Roots to help children articulate their thinking and explore characters. Just one example of the drama pedagogies we employ comes in The Wilderness, where freeze frames and thought-tapping are paired together (children put themselves in a still tableau of a moment from the book and when tapped on the shoulder are invited to share what their character is thinking). This enables children to consider the vocabulary choices the character might use and the grammatical tools that might best be employed to express their current state, enabling them to have their needs met moving forwards.

 
Learning to talk, listen and communicate: the development of children’s speaking, listening and communication skills

As the Commission notes, ‘Oracy is a curriculum goal in its own right,’ and one effective way to support it is by organising the generic skills of oracy into four areas: physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social-emotional competencies (p.16). This framework, developed by Voice 21 and the University of Cambridge in The Oracy Framework, emphasises the importance of developing oracy skills. Opportunities for children to learn to talk and develop these skills are vital and, again, central to an audience and purpose-driven approach to literacy.  For example, a speech inspired by  Suffragette: The Battle for Equality loses impact if not delivered orally to an audience and similarly debating the Wolf's guilt as defence and prosecution in The Three Little Pigs Project is in itself an oracy outcome as children draw on their developing oracy skills to consider how best to articulate and present their arguments for desired outcome and impact.

Reception and Year 1 resources focus on quality exploratory discussions and on understanding how sentences work together for meaning and clarity. As children move up the school, they have ample opportunities to develop speech and debate – both highlighted as helpful by the Commission for providing opportunities for critical thinking and reasoning. Here are some of the Writing Roots containing varied opportunities for speech and debate as oral outcomes:

• Year 2: Dear Earth, The Great Fire of London
• Year 3: The Seed of Doubt, The Last Garden
• Year 4: Varmints, Frindleswylde, Baker By The Sea, Granny Came Here on the Empire Windrush, Pride
• Year 5: The Man Who walked Between the Towers, the Odyssey, The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries, Beowulf
• Year 6: Can We Save the Tiger?, Suffragette: The Battle for Equality

Learning about talk, listening and communication: building knowledge and understanding of speaking, listening and communication in its many contexts.

The final component of oracy, as highlighted in the report, is learning about talk—helping children understand spoken language and communication in all its forms. This is crucial for enabling children to make informed language choices in different contexts and to appreciate and understand diverse ways of using language (p.29). At Literacy Tree, we are committed to selecting diverse texts that expose children to protagonists from various backgrounds and walks of life. We aim to highlight how communication differs between geographical regions, social groups and occupation. Focusing on audience and purpose, language formality and grammatical structures enable opportunities to explore and understand this deeper.

Oracy is undoubtably a hot topic within education at the moment, and we are so glad to see it. Do keep your eyes peeled for more blog posts on this topic in the coming months on the Literacy Tree platform – there is so much we can get stuck into together!

Posted in: Curriculum | Oracy | Literacy