If there was ever a generic skill that was most essential for success in life, it would have to be oracy: the power of effective oral communication.

We need speaking and listening skills to succeed at job interviews, interact with customers and clients, express our ailments to medical practitioners and tell people that we love them.

The importance of speaking and listening is hardly a revelation. It has been central to learning since the time of the ancient Greeks, when rhetoric was considered a means to influence social and political landscapes.

Yet the removal of the speaking and listening component from the GCSE qualification has made many English teachers feel that oracy has been demoted or devalued.

Teachers are compelled to prioritise performance in assessment areas that ‘count’ towards school results, so speaking and listening has had to take a backseat to other curriculum components. This leaves us in a situation in which oracy - arguably the bread and butter of many professions - no longer ‘counts’ towards our schools’ results, while outside of the classroom it matters just as much as ever to our pupils.

Oracy is a whole-school responsibility

Ironically, on GCSE certificates, there is now a distinct acknowledgement of a student’s speaking and listening skills, qualified as ‘pass’, ‘merit’ or ‘distinction’. To the layman, this looks like schools are prioritising these fundamental skills when, in fact, with the ‘strengthened’ English language and literature specifications in action, English teachers are struggling to find curriculum time for this perceived ‘bolt-on’ component.

It is my belief that promoting oracy needs to now become a whole-school responsibility. This is particularly true since it has become so explicit on our students’ exam certificates. In the absence of a formal speaking and listening component in English, all teachers have a responsibility to make sure that our pupils leave school with confident, well-developed communication skills as well as a set of decent grades.

Preparation for the workplace

Should such an approach be adopted, it would not only benefit pupils, but enhance outcomes of many subject areas and therefore improve whole-school results. There’s evidence that teaching pupils to develop their spoken ability supports the development of their writing skills. Sticht and James (1984) have shown that providing opportunities for adults to improve their speaking and listening skills raises their reading potential. Other studies have shown that developing oracy skills helps to retain subject-specific knowledge.

It is right that speaking and listening should underpin the curriculum in all subjects. What this could look like will vary across subjects and school contexts, but the use of debate with a focus on formal and academic language could work in some subject areas. Formal presentations may better suit other subjects, while an overarching requirement that all verbal responses are given in well-formed and developed sentences could work across all subject areas.

We have a whole-school responsibility to ensure that our pupils leave us with the best academic profile and best possible preparation for the world of work - and that means equipping them with the oral communication skills that they need to succeed.

References

Adey and Shayer, 2015: 130, 137-138. In Millard, W. and Menzies, L. ‘Oracy: The State of Speaking in our Schools.’ Accessed from https://cdn.lkmco.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Oracy-Report.pdf

Rivard, L. P. and Straw, S. B. (2000) ‘The Effect of Talk and Writing on Learning Science: An Exploratory Study’, Science Education, 84, p566-593

Sticht, T. & James, J. (1984) in Sticht, T. (2003) ‘From Oracy to Literacy.’ Literacy Today, Issue 36, p18.  

Sarah Barker is head of English and drama at St Bernadette Secondary School in Bristol. She tweets as @ladybarkbark