Oracy

Oracy at Lark Hill

Too much talking in class has traditionally been regarded as negative – a sign of disruption or lack of focus. But at Lark Hill children’s talk is at the centre of everything we do. We believe that classrooms should place more emphasis on children’s talk than teacher talk.

This impacts positively on all children, but it has a significant impact on prior low-attaining children.

Of course, it is not just any talk; it breaks away from the question-answer and listen-tell routines that typify traditional teaching practices. In our classrooms, the teacher acts as a facilitator to encourage children to think deeply and justify their responses, enabling them to build on each other’s ideas.

As a staff team, we have engaged in research to identify how best to develop a learning environment that values and promotes children’s talk. Here are the key principles we identified:

1. Give children confidence and opportunities to ask questions
Children need to experience good quality spoken language, and this includes asking plenty of questions. If we want our children to be talking about their learning and pose questions, we need to provide them with the opportunity and the skills to do so.

2. Allow time for paired and group discussion
We believe that it is essential for children to have opportunities to work collaboratively and to learn from each other. We plan time into lessons where children can use discussion to summarise, link learning and challenge ideas.

3. Use a range of questioning strategies
Lessons should provide a range of questioning strategies:

• Thinking time – all pupils are given the chance to think before answering a question.
• The traditional raising of hands leads to a small number of the same children dominating the discussion; instead, the teacher selects pupils to answer or uses other methods to ensure contributions are fair and wide-ranging.
• Pupils are encouraged to discuss with a group or a partner to help them formulate an answer.
• The teacher involves a number of pupils in the answer to a single question, creating the opportunity for discussion through phrases such as “What do you think?” and “Do you agree with that answer?”
• Incorrect answers are discussed to develop an understanding.
• Time is given for pupils to formulate questions.

4. Ask children how they feel
It is always important to ask our pupils how they feel about their learning, as this gives us an idea of how they see what they do and don’t know. Regular reflection points in lessons are invaluable to support pupil progress.

5. Ask open-ended questions
Teachers should ask open-ended questions that have more than one possible answer. These deepen children’s understanding and require them to reflect, rather than restricting them to searching for the "right answer".

We can use the following:

• What do you think?
• Why do you think that?
• How do you know?
• Do you have a reason?
• Can you be sure?
• Is there another way?

6. Promote a balance of talk between teacher and pupils
Traditionally, in most situations in the classroom, either the teacher or the pupil is passive. But we encourage our pupils to actively engage and teachers constructively intervene.

7. Discuss misconceptions
Pupils need to be able to identify their own misconceptions and be given the opportunity to talk these misconceptions through. This must be within a climate where all pupils feel safe to make mistakes and develop from these.

8. Model thoughts out loud
It is essential that we act as role models for our pupils, demonstrating critical-thinking skills and effective use of language. Pupils especially benefit from the modelling of inter-thinking between adults in the classroom.

Our TALK Promises and TALK Prompts

As a school community, we have decided upon five essential TALK Promises. These are pledges or agreements that we all follow in order to ensure high-quality discussion that is fair and inclusive. TALK Prompts are there to help everyone improve their oracy, thinking and questioning skills.

Our Talk Promises are:

• We will focus on and support the speaker.
• We will give each other thinking time.
• We will explain our own thoughts and build on the ideas of others.
• We will speak clearly when it is our turn to speak.
• We will ask questions to support our learning.