Developing Oracy through Primary Geography

Background: We undertook this inquiry in a one form entry Church of England primary academy in the North West of England, where oracy has been identified as a key driver within our three-year school development plan. We recognised that, although talk was present across our curriculum, the explicit teaching of oracy skills was not yet embedded. Our assessment practices were also weighted more strongly towards written outcomes and knowledge recall than towards listening to learners think, reason and explain aloud. Aims: Our inquiry asked: Do planned opportunities for talk and group discussion within Geography allow for the development of physical, linguistic, cognitive and social and emotional skills? Within this, are learners able to present their understanding and learning using these developing oracy skills? We focused on Year 5 Geography (Ages 9-10), particularly global tourism and physical geography, using the Alps as the context for inquiry. Methods: We worked through two research lessons within a five-lesson sequence. In Research Lesson 1, we established a baseline through audio summaries, photograph elicitation, map work, question stems, and builder/challenger roles as part of an initial discussion. Between the two research lessons, we taught further sessions and refined our approach. In Research Lesson 2, learners revisited prior knowledge and presented their understanding verbally, using a range of formats including audio recording and digital presentation. This was done to see whether or not the embedded Oracy skills taught within these sessions would allow the children to present their work with a developing confidence because of the increased recall experiences planned through the lessons. We tracked the class as a whole and three case learners in detail. Findings: We found that learners began to embed aspects of the Oracy Framework in their dialogic talk due to the specific planned activities that prioritised Oracy within teaching and learning. Talking roles, shared ground rules, sentence stems and scaffolded prompts supported participation, especially in small-group discussion. Learners often demonstrated stronger subject understanding than expected because of the implementation of these techniques within teaching and learning, but presentational speaking remained less secure. Many more children than we predicted chose to use audio recordings rather than speak live to an audiences. The inquiry also showed that some learners could demonstrate strong cognitive and linguistic understanding without yet showing comparable confidence in the physical or social and emotional strands of oracy. Implications for practice: Our inquiry suggests that oracy cannot be taught in isolation or as a short-term add-on. It requires consistent modelling, repeated rehearsal, agreed discussion expectations, access to sentence stems and subject language, and planned opportunities for both exploratory talk and presentational speaking. It also points towards a whole-school approach in which oracy is built progressively across phases and across the curriculum. We also recommend the implementation of an Oracy skills progression document that can be developed throughout the school to allow children to revisit and develop skills taught throughout their Primary education.

Keywords

oracy, geography education, exploratory talk, research lesson study, dialogic learning

Permanent link to cite this item

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/1470
https://doi.org/10.71779/887

Collections

Leading Education Improvement Through Oracy-Oriented Inquiry