To celebrate the launch of our new Oracy Opportunities, Jess White, one of our brilliant resource writers, has shared five ways to develop oracy in your classroom.
Written by Jess White for now>press>play.
In schools, oracy describes the skills involved with effective speaking and listening. It has become a focus for many schools in recent years and the government has recognised its importance for children’s development.
Explicit teaching of oracy skills in the classroom has been shown not only to improve academic outcomes for children, but also to improve self-confidence and well-being. If you want to find out more about oracy, have a look at Voice 21’s website.
1. Introduce oracy to your classroom
If you’re new to oracy, use Voice 21’s oracy framework to evaluate and embed oracy in your classroom and school. Consider these simple tips as you begin to teach speaking and listening skills:
- Focus on one area of the framework at a time to avoid overwhelming children and school staff.
- Consider which elements are appropriate at each phase of children’s development.
- Use concrete examples that children can practise for each part of the framework.
- Encourage skill specific praise by staff and amongst peers, for example ‘You did a great job at keeping up eye-contact while you were speaking.’
2. Get stuck into some now>press>play oracy activities
3. Perform a script
Rehearse and perform a script based around a topic.
All now>press>play oracy resources include a short section of script for children to enhance their skills of reading for performance and using body language to convey meaning.
Use the script during an assembly or another event in the school calendar. Invite parents or other members of the school community to watch.
4. Start a Key Stage 2 debate club
You could select issues that are important to your school community, for example approaches to school uniform or the use of the playground. Pobble 365 has more ideas for debates in a blog post.
Consideration for the set up and management of debates is crucial, use this English-Speaking Union resource for further ideas on staging debates.
Remember to select key elements of the oracy framework for children to focus on.
5. Play an oracy game with your class in Early Years or Key Stage 1
British Council has ideas for simple oracy games to play in groups.
A lot of now>press>play’s Oracy Opportunities for Key Stage 1 and Early Years Experiences also include subject-specific games, such as:
- Making a list of what to pack in a group and having to remember what has been said already.
- Describing something without saying what it is so a partner can guess.
- If I were a … I would be …, for example an animal.
The new now>press>play oracy resources focus on improving children’s presentation, performance and persuasion skills, alongside an immersive Experience which brings them inside the topic.
You can use the Oracy Opportunities as stand-alone activities or as a way to build up to a performance or piece of writing.
