Lucy Powell published this article recently doubling down her desire to thread “oracy” throughout the new National Curriculum as it is reformed for England. It has certainly caused a stir across social media and reignited debate and division about how learning happens. It has done this primarily because there is a vacuum when it comes to the substantive knowledge of “oracy” leaving pedagogy to fill the void. And this is where the division starts.

There has been substantial discussion on social media around what constitutes “oracy” and what place it has in a classroom. It becomes clear when you try to follow some of the discussions that by far the biggest problem is that there is no substantive knowledge framework of what students are entitled to learn outside of the Speaking and Listening elements of the National Curriculum. This results in there being as many views of “oracy” out there as there are voices talking about it.

The biggest division is over whether “oracy” is a vehicle for learning or a body of knowledge to be learnt. Is it what we teach or is it how we teach? Critics of a drive to include more “oracy” across the curriculum often argue that pedagogical choices should be made based on the best evidence of what is effective in a given domain and context. Others argue that talk itself is the forgotten and neglected medium for exploring knowledge and that more talk will lead to more learning.

Pedagogy has come a long way in England over the past 15 years and we are now far more evidence informed in terms of both how learning happens and what best practice in a classroom looks like than ever before. Teaching children anything new by giving them access to materials and allowing them to discover the learning for themselves is as inefficient as it would be to give someone learning dentistry a drill and telling them to have at it. We demand more from the strategies we employ in our classrooms and are more stringent in what passes the filter of effectiveness into our practice. And yet there are those that argue more talk would lead to more learning in the same way. Discovery learning has been rightly cast out of our classrooms. Except in the name of “oracy” where students would learn to debate by… well… debating. 

Aside from pedagogy, things like learning to read and write are backed by the substantive knowledge framework of the National Curriculum which clearly defines and sequences knowledge so it is clear what students need to learn, and how that learning progresses. It is explicit what teachers need to teach. The same is not true for “oracy”.

We need a substantive knowledge framework for Speaking and Listening that tells schools what to teach, not how to teach. It should identify what every student is entitled to learn, but leave teachers to choose the best way to learn it.

Talking is not the same as learning

“Doing” is a very valid part of learning be it via guided or independent practice. So “doing” the skill is in itself learning right? Well not really. Practising doing something ineffectively will not suddenly make you effective. So not only does building practice without a foundation of knowledge lead to poor learning but it also exposes the very real risk with something like Speaking and Listening that participation and performance are confused with progress. Just because a student joined in a debate does not necessarily indicate that they understood neither how arguments are constructed nor the subject being discussed. Participation in a discussion is a poor proxy for understanding how they work.

Now don’t get me wrong here. The Speaking and Listening activity may be a worthwhile way to develop learning in which case it would already be there in our well planned units without a push to improve “oracy” but the learning is not guaranteed.

In other words we cannot guarantee learning about speaking and listening simply because more talk was done. Opportunities to practice do not necessarily lead to progress.

What do pupils need to know?

We must therefore consider what that foundation of Speaking and Listening knowledge looks like. What should students learn in a substantive knowledge framework for Speaking and Listening? I would suggest that there are a number of main domains within Speaking and Listening each with multiple subdomains of knowledge to be studied and mastered. And these are distinctly bespoke from any performative outcomes which would be the basis for an assessment framework. I am interested only in what knowledge students would learn:

• Linguistic knowledge: vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, intonation, emphasis and register.
• Listening and interpretation: identifying main ideas, recognising implied meanings, summarising information and evaluating evidence.
• Dialogic knowledge: asking purposeful questions, building on others’ contributions, challenging ideas constructively and reconsidering a position.
• Rhetorical knowledge: understanding how explanations, narratives, presentations and arguments are structured for different audiences and purposes.
• Disciplinary knowledge: understanding how spoken language is used to explain, interpret and justify ideas in subjects such as science, history and mathematics.

These are not simply skills pupils acquire through repeated practice. They are bodies of knowledge that require explicit teaching. These are demonstrative rather than comprehensive and are in no way a complete set of substantive learning elements.

For example, if we isolate “asking purposeful questions” from the Dialogic Knowledge domain we get a specific unit of knowledge that students must learn about to contribute to their success in discussions. It must be explicitly taught, models of successful purposeful questions being asked should be shared, students should be guided as they practice and then given increasingly more independent opportunities to practice applying that knowledge. In short, the skill of applying that knowledge comes after the knowledge has been taught.

It could be argued that skill is the practical application of knowledge. If that is the case then without a solid grounding in this kind of substantive knowledge framework the skills are little more than activities. They are about pedagogy not learning. This body of knowledge about Speaking and Listening needs explicitly teaching, modelling, practising, and assessing as part of a coherent framework that plans for progression and development of the learning. Most importantly, how much scaffolding a student needs, and when that can be removed, is something that needs careful consideration and requires cross curricular collaboration on a scale quite difficult in secondary schools.

The trap with something like “oracy” is to let a romanticised image of children discussing ideas and being given a voice colour our view of what it takes to be successful in Speaking and Listening. So in a best intentions push to get students’ voices and opinions expressed we may be tempted to jump the learning outcomes and land on the performance outcomes. A lively debate however may not necessarily produce better reasoning, more purposeful questions being asked, nor, and this is most important, better understanding of the subject content being learned.

The answer is not to abandon talk, but to teach the knowledge that makes it meaningful.

Confidence is not competence

One justification often used for a wider integration of “oracy” is that we want students to become confident speakers. Confidence matters but it is not a reliable measure of understanding neither subject content nor Speaking and Listening. A fluent speaker offering a weak argument confidently is still weak.

If we are concerned with better speaking and listening, or indeed better subject content learning, then confidence should play no part in our assessment of the learning. Quality of reasoning, linguistic expression, interpretation of information and opinions, and responsiveness to others are all better indicators of the quality of talk over confidence. It is often cited that we need to develop confident readers but again, confidence is a poor proxy for learning.

A substantive knowledge framework also exposes and deals with another issue of fairness in the curriculum. Accent, dialect, and personality often influence perceived competence when poorly defined “oracy” frameworks are used. With a substantive knowledge framework for Speaking and Listening across the curriculum it could be explicitly clear what the role, purpose, and extent of study should be of these elements leaving no room for prejudices and biases no matter how subconscious they are.

Oracy has its own place in the curriculum

We must be really clear what the place of Speaking and Listening is within the curriculum. Pedagogical decisions should not be dictated to subject specialists by anyone other than subject specialists. The idea of a maths lesson being forced to include some role play simply to tick off a list of non-negotiable “oracy” elements is simply absurd. We are one of the most evidence informed countries in the world when it comes to pedagogy and have spent the last 15 years driving inefficient and ineffective practice from our schools and driving standards up. It devalues that work and indeed the discipline of Speaking and Learning itself to reduce it to a list of pedagogical approaches to be crowbarred into lessons in the name of “oracy”.

Speaking and Listening are fundamental elements of how we communicate and deserve their bespoke place on the National Curriculum.

Where Speaking and Listening is to be embedded across subjects it must be done in a disciplinary way. For example, there are distinct demands on a speaker in Maths that are different from one in History for example. Clarity of terminology may be highly important in Maths where “Divide it by 2” would be corrected to “Divide the denominator by 2”. One generic pedagogical set of strategies would clearly not be appropriate.

Each domain across the National Curriculum requires and deserves its own are within a discreet substantive knowledge framework.

Progression matters

Without a substantive knowledge framework there can be no coherent mapping of progression. Where a younger student may need to focus on learning the vocabulary of rhetoric to be able to express opinions, a student in KS2 may have moved on to structuring an argument selecting effective vocabulary. It is the purpose of a substantive knowledge framework to set out how this progression works so leaders can effectively plan sequences of learning to best deliver that progression. Progression should not just be about using more talk for longer but should focus on mastering the foundational knowledge so it can be applied independently.

A framework tells us what to teach

The bottom line is that a substantive knowledge framework for Speaking and Listening should tell schools what to teach, not how to teach. It should identify what every student is entitled to learn, but leave teachers to choose the best way to learn it.

This distinction matters. Starting with the end product of delivering a speech or holding a discussion and hoping it leads to learning excludes those at the novice stage of their speaking and listening journey. It disadvantages those for whom extended talk wasn’t part of their childhood and those already struggling with difficult subject content across the curriculum.

If “oracy” is to have the same curricular ambition and weighting as Reading and Writing, then Speaking and Listening must be given an equal weighting in the substantive knowledge framework of the National Curriculum.

The goal isn’t just more talk for the sake of talk. The goal is better, informed, structured, coherent, and expressive talk based on careful listening. It is easy to ensure that all young people are heard: Just make them talk more. But giving every student in England the powerful knowledge of Speaking and Listening empowers them to find their own voice and use it proficiently to make it heard.