Teachers in England aren’t always sure how to teach spoken language in a way that helps pupils to express themselves confidently. That’s according to Ofsted, whose recent English subject report flagged that schools often “do not consider spoken language well in their English curriculum”.

This is something that needs to change, the inspectorate suggests, because “developing spoken language” is “essential for the academic progress of all children”.

But what does improving the teaching of spoken language look like?

Firstly, it’s important for teachers to understand that classroom talk is so much more than just “chat” or background noise. Listening to the talk taking place all around us can tell us so much about what is actually going on in our classrooms.

What children think and understand is often silent and invisible; it is inside their heads as they’re working. Talk helps to make this accessible to us as external observers, enabling us to work out which pupils are engaged (and which aren’t), who understands (and who doesn’t), and to identify any gaps or misconceptions that pupils may have.

More broadly, talk can also provide information about pupils’ language development, social relationships and interactions, and even their likes and dislikes. The wealth of insights that talk can provide is almost limitless.

Talk for learning: what does the evidence say?

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that there is a strong body of evidence supporting the importance of talk for learning. The Education Endowment Foundation’s (EEF) Teaching and Learning Toolkit, for example, suggests that oral language interventions - including discussion, as well as activities to promote the development of pupils’ vocabulary and expression - can lead to an additional six months of progress, making this one of the most promising approaches featured in the Toolkit as a whole.

The importance of talk is also referenced across the EEF’s suite of guidance reports - from those on literacy and maths to those on science and metacognition - emphasising its versatility in promoting thinking and understanding across the curriculum.

How can we promote high-quality talk?

However, just asking children to talk is not enough to ensure that this is done well. Looking back now, I recognise that, in my own classroom, I asked pupils to “talk to your partner” hundreds of times, and yet did not always provide the structure and guidance that pupils needed to enable them to do this effectively.

In a recent EEF podcast on “high-quality talk”, Professor Neil Mercer, emeritus professor of education at the University of Cambridge, and director of the Oracy@Cambridge study centre, spoke powerfully about the need for teachers to teach oracy skills like we teach skills in maths, reading or PE.

But what would this look like, and how can we ensure that we maximise the potential that talk holds for learning outcomes?

For me, there are five key actions that teachers can undertake to develop the quality of talk taking place in their classrooms. These can be remembered using the “five Ps” model: plan, probe, participation, prompts and pointers.

Plan: planning for high-quality talk

When it is done well, facilitating high-quality classroom talk looks effortless, but the truth is that it requires careful thought and planning, particularly in classes where discussions and debate are not yet the norm.

In order to engage in meaningful discussions, pupils need something worth talking about, and therefore it is important to identify discussion points that encourage exploration and debate.

We can achieve this by asking pupils to debate whether key statements are true, false or sometimes true. We can also provide worked examples to prompt pupils to unpick, compare and contrast multiple approaches and strategies.

Open-ended tasks like these provide time and space for pupils to engage in extended discussions about different concepts and strategies, critically evaluating these in a way that will ultimately deepen their understanding.

Probe: encouraging pupils to extend and elaborate on their responses

Research from Christine Howe and her team at the University of Cambridge suggests that, when it comes to interactions between teachers and pupils, it is particularly important that pupils are prompted to:

• Extend and elaborate upon their ideas.
• Make links between their own responses and those of others.
• Discuss and debate opposing opinions and viewpoints.
   

However, when I reflect on my own practice, I recognise that in the past I often missed opportunities to encourage students to do this because of a perceived pressure to move on to the next child or discussion point.

Now, I try to slow down and use follow-up questions to encourage pupils to build upon their initial responses to add further detail. For example, questions such as “Can you tell me more about that?” prompt children to move beyond superficial responses, to provide deeper insights into their thinking and understanding. Similarly, “how” and “why” questions can be used to probe specific aspects of pupils’ first responses to dig deeper into particular processes, such as “How did you check your work to improve accuracy?” or “Why did you choose to use that particular approach there?”.

Read more:

• Group work: why it works and how to do it well
• Ofsted: Eight concerns about English teaching
• Why dialogic teaching is still relevant in the digital age

Pupils can also be prompted to build upon the ideas of their peers through direct invitations - “Who can build on what has been said here?” - as well as through establishing a culture of “challenge” within the classroom.

One way that I have done this is by encouraging children to pose a “challenge” whenever they recognise that they hold an opposing viewpoint or have developed an alternative way of working that they want to share with the class. I have established a rule that children can call “challenge” freely at any point in our discussions, before being invited to share their views.

Although this system took time to establish, once it was embedded it enabled our discussions to be more natural and free-flowing, rather than always being controlled and directed by an adult.

Participation: encouraging active engagement in discussion and debate

If a culture of participation in talk for learning is not yet in place within a classroom, there may be some pupils who are reluctant to engage or who initially feel uncomfortable about discussions and debate, particularly where this requires them to challenge others’ ideas.

To help overcome this, developing a supportive classroom culture is key. This includes ensuring that children have sufficient thinking time before taking part in discussion, to allow them to gather their thoughts and ideas, and consider possible responses.

Research from Jenni Ingram and Victoria Elliott, from the University of Oxford, suggests that waiting for three seconds after asking a question can encourage students to provide longer responses, often including reasoning or explanation. Over time, using these waiting times consistently as part of classroom routines can encourage longer responses to become a regular feature of interactions, and ultimately become embedded as habits.

It is also important to make clear our expectations around participation in classroom talk, so establishing a set of ground rules is essential.

Additionally, it can be useful to help pupils understand the potential of talk to support the development of their own understanding and that of their peers. Research from Amanda Jansen even shows that some pupils are more likely to participate in discussions about learning if they can help their peers, potentially giving them an added incentive to engage.

The Oracy Cambridge website has some useful discussion prompts and self-assessment tools that can be used to encourage students to reflect upon the quality of their discussions and whether all group members were able to contribute effectively.

Prompts and pointers: developing and scaffolding pupil talk

Another way to encourage participation is by providing specific guidance and resources to develop pupil talk. Scaffolds such as question prompts and sentence stems can give pupils the language structures and vocabulary they need to communicate their thinking clearly.

At the same time, teachers need to consider their own talk, and how they can consistently provide opportunities for modelling any target structures or vocabulary. This ensures that they are providing high-quality examples that pupils can draw upon in their own explanations and discussions.

Finally - to return to Mercer’s point about teaching skills in oracy in the same way that we teach skills in other subjects - we also need to consider how we monitor and formatively assess pupils’ talk to promote progress.

Indeed, in its report, Ofsted recommends that secondary schools, in particular, plan for progression in spoken language “with the same precision as progression in reading and literature”.

We can do this by building in opportunities to provide targeted feedback to help students understand their strengths and any areas for development. Crucially, this feedback should help pupils to understand their next steps in order to improve and develop talk continually over time.

Talk has huge potential for enriching the learning that is taking place in our classrooms. By considering the five Ps model - plan, probe, participation, prompts and points - I hope that teachers can begin to reflect upon the talk taking place all around them, and how to further develop this in order to maximise the potential for meaningful and impactful discussions in their own contexts.

Dr Kirstin Mulholland, a former classroom teacher, is a lecturer in education at Northumbria University