The Commission on the Future of Oracy Education, chaired by Geoff Barton, is clear in its assessment that the quality of spoken language has a direct correlation with children’s learning and life chances. It is aiming to set up a blueprint of required oracy skills, which will inform Labour’s forthcoming curriculum review of the education sector.
But trainers and employers say the deficiencies in young people’s verbal communication are more nuanced than one might suppose.
Helen Clarkson works for York Learning, which offers a career service for learners aged 16-25 who have struggled in formal education and/or have specific learning needs.
“These students have a general nervousness around talking in front of others or to people they don’t know,” she says.
“They’ll communicate through social media but would run a mile if you asked them to make a phone call. We focus on improving their speaking and listening skills because it is where there is the greatest need. It’s about employability and we are empowering them to achieve a successful work placement as part of their course, so building communication skills is vital.”
So why are some schools struggling to equip students with communication skills? Content-heavy GCSE and A-level curricula, and a results-driven education culture are likely factors.
Professor Neil Mercer, of the University of Cambridge, has argued that “in a culture of high-stakes testing…coaching for recall against the clock subverts debate and divergence”. In the current curriculum, most subjects give no marks for teamwork or verbal communication as part of the summative assessment.
However, some schools are redressing the balance, offering activities such as Lamda examinations in public speaking; English Speaking Union debating and Model United Nations (MUN), as well as encouraging volunteering opportunities.
Mark Chesterton, head of debating and MUN at Reigate Grammar, says that the school’s debating programme “develops students’ verbal agility and dexterity”, and helps them to “develop into agile debaters able to express their arguments with conviction”.
Laura Yandell, principal deputy head curricular at Harrow International School Hong Kong, says her school is “explicitly targeting the development of communication skills across all traditional subjects” as well as a broad variety of co-curricular options, including initiatives such as TEDx Youth, improvisation sessions and poetry events.
“It’s very enjoyable and accessible, and a large number of our students are improving, which is our goal: to help everyone succeed, so everyone’s real-world ready,” she says.
Running parallel to oracy development, schools are increasingly doing more to prepare students for the workplace, tailoring “careers and futures” to correlate with the government’s recommended Gatsby benchmarks (a set of eight markers, including linking curriculum learning to careers, offering encounters with employers and employees, and experiences of workplaces).
Such schools are likely to utilise alumni to work with existing students via practice interviews, for example, and to organise careers fairs and work experience to prepare students for the transition to work.
As a young man, the renowned investor Warren Buffett was often physically sick at the thought of speaking in front of a group of people. His education had prepared him for the academic side of finance but not the communicative part. He credits the public speaking course he took after college as one of the most important qualifications of his life, arguing that “a relatively modest improvement [in communication skills] can make a major difference in your future earning power, as well as in many aspects of your life”.
Education should be transformative and a focus on oracy and communication should be a key priority so that students of all abilities can thrive.
David Tuck is head of history and politics at Harrow International School Hong Kong
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