Oracy in Schools

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Bright Tribe

The Bright Tribe team have been looking at the importance of Oracy as a precursor to reading and understanding and debating how we can link it into our curriculum to the benefit of our students. It has long been understood that the quality of oracy in the classroom is linked to workplace performance and recent discussions with colleagues have reinforced this view:

“Talk for Writing needs embedding from Nursery to Year 6”

“Talk – questions, explanations, ideas and derive facts”

“Learn, Grow, Prosper is the conversation”

“Parents need to be involved as readers”

According to a recent paper produced by Robin Alexander (20/02/2012) on the topic, there is now evidence from over 20 major international studies that quality classroom talk raises attainment standards in the core subjects. In order to improve the quality of classroom talk in schools we need to look at the quality of language being used in the teaching and learning methods to raise the standard of pupil talk and the cognitive impact of classroom talk overall. This requires consideration across the curriculum, as well as English.

Teachers have understood for many years that social disadvantage can be compounded by lack of oral development and communication, and employers also recognise the social and economic importance of the skills of articulate communication, in speaking as well as writing. The team at Bright Tribe will be developing best practice in this area to ensure Bright Tribe pupils benefit from this research throughout the curriculum.

Click here to read Robin Alexander’s full paper