So far, we have looked at what voice is and why it is important to address the teaching of oracy in education systems. Last week, we looked at how oracy can address social division: this week, we will consider the power of oracy in developing mutual understanding and navigating polarising topics.

What does the research tell us?

With increasing globalisation and global migration, schools can be rich, international spaces, but can also be fraught with ideological division and tensions that are complicated further by the complexities of adolescence. Each student is like an iceberg bringing with them a visible tip that represents what we see at first glance, and a vast, hidden mass below the surface that encompasses the different components of their identity including race and ethnicity, immigration status, social class, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, along with other facets of their personal history including their beliefs, opinions and biases. 

Lewis Iwu, in his former role as Director of the Fair Education Alliance, argued that ‘oracy is also essential for equitability and fairness: high levels of oracy allow us to empathize, to listen, to properly hear one another, and to exist in an inter-related society - which is essential in a school, of course, but in the wider world too’. 

Elsewhere, In the field of a Higher Education, a study conducted in 2022 at a regional Australian university in the state of Queensland found that a dialogic approach to facilitating cross-cultural discussions - whereby  a group of culturally diverse students were required to listen to each other, ask questions, and respond thoughtfully - helped to foster intercultural competence including greater self-awareness, understanding of others' perspectives, and an awareness of communication skills needed for global interactions.

This idea is  conceptualised in the graphic below:

Why does this matter?

These lived experiences can shape our students’  ability to communicate with others, and can also mean that politically charged topics can arise spontaneously in the classroom. Likewise, as teachers, the curriculum sometimes requires that we teach controversial topics that can potentially be polarising because of our students’ exisiting views.  A classroom rooted in the principles of oracy can provide a framework to navigate these choppy, unpredictable waters and to enable challenging conversations to take place.

In subsequent newsletters, we will be discussing some of the features of the key components of an oracy classroom that can help to create the conditions for effective dialogue to take place which include:

1. The Classroom Space

2. Discussion Guidelines

3. The role of the teacher to model talk moves

4. Supporting pupils to develop metacognitive awareness of talk

Further reading

• Bakhtin, M.M. (1986). Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

• Einfalt, J., Alford, J., & Theobald, M. (2022). Making talk work: using a dialogic approach to develop intercultural competence with students at an Australian university. 10.1080/14675986.2022.2031903

• ‘Why Oracy Matters: Evidence base for Positioning Oracy at the heart of the school curriculum’,  A Report Commissioned by the English Speaking Union (2021)