Oracy is a hot topic. It is the core agenda of academic research groups like Oracy Cambridge and 聽educational charities like and the . 聽It is prominent within . And it is increasingly framed as a tool to tackle social injustice. But where did the concept of oracy come from? And on whose language practices is 鈥榟igh-quality鈥� oracy based? In published in the Oxford Review of Education, I set out to find out. Deficit foundations Oracy was coined by the academic Andrew Wilkinson in the 1960s. This was a time when was rife in educational research. Concepts such as 鈥榬estricted codes鈥�, 鈥榲erbal deprivation鈥�, and 鈥榮emilingualism鈥� framed marginalised families as having faults in their language that needed fixing. The original notion of oracy was at least in part rooted in this deficit thinking. Take, for example, Wilkinson鈥檚 binary between 鈥榞ood language homes鈥� and 鈥榳orking homes鈥�.聽 , working-class parents 鈥榦ffer very little as language models鈥�, 鈥榟ave not the words in which to explain or persuade鈥� and 鈥榟ave difficulty in verbalising鈥�. Of working-class children, he claims they are 鈥榙eficient in words鈥� and insists that 鈥榯he wrong language experience may result in a culturally induced backwardness鈥�. He described Deaf children as 鈥榠solated鈥�, 鈥榝rustrated鈥�, and 鈥榬etarded compared with children with normal hearing鈥�. Wilkinson argued for 鈥榦racy鈥� as a remedial tool to fix and develop these supposed deficiencies. Exposure to the language of the middle-classes, he thought, would lead disadvantaged children to experience success. Sixty years later, oracy has never quite shaken its deficit foundations, nor the logics that language alone is a tool for social equality. Linguistic deprivation Even leading oracy academics such as Professor Neil Mercer, whose work on exploratory talk is of huge significance, said : 鈥淵ou are the only second chance for some children to have a rich language experience. If these children are not getting it at school, they are not getting it鈥�. With his colleague James Mannion, he reproduces that characterised Wilkinson鈥檚 work, using labels such as 鈥榣imited talk repertoire鈥� and 鈥榬ich talk experience鈥� to describe working- and middle-class children respectively. Recent deficit framings about oracy also with reference to the 鈥榳ord gap鈥�, a concept which has its own foundations in and can legitimise language policing under the purportedly progressive aims of oracy. For example, as Will Millard and Loic Menzies write : 鈥淸鈥 asking pupils to speak in full sentences and avoid using words such as 鈥榣ike鈥�, are important in developing the quality of pupils鈥� oracy鈥�. The same authors co-drafted the recent report, part of which includes marginalised children as producing 鈥榩oor oral language鈥� and 鈥榣ow language levels鈥�. Evidence to the APPG was wide-ranging, but it drew in part on ideas from Jean Gross who suggested that . It was good to see Voice 21 recently . I applaud initiatives designed to harness the power of spoken interaction, but this developing sector must engage with and unpick the underlying narrative of linguistic deficit. Social justice Oracy is increasingly part of a narrative which assumes that tweaks to marginalised children鈥檚 language will enable them to experience social justice and equality. This theory of change underpins Keir Starmer鈥檚 suggestion that 鈥樷��. It underpins the Oracy APPG report, where oracy is seen as the means to 鈥榯ackling entrenched social immobility and dismantling barriers for children and young people from less advantaged backgrounds鈥�. This theory of change is flawed. It fails to account for the richness of working-class language, and it locates language as the reason that social injustice persists, obscuring the broader structures of inequality that shape society. . All teachers should endeavour to get children talking in class, but we should all be wary of saying social justice is a matter of modifying how marginalised children talk.
JB 12 February 2024 Even by common standards of poor educational journalism, this is extremely poor. It is beyond debate that quality of language, especially in early years, is linked to the majority of learning skills/needs, including emotional health. That it’s roots were misused by many is also beyond debate, but the research since then is exceptionally robust and far more so than the majority of educational research which is little better than small case studies. I will not be voting labour, but anyone suggesting that Keir Starmer is lazily repeating a trope about working class deficits is either stupid or being willfully ignorant for the sake of a bad article. If you want to write opinion pieces on such foundational topics as language development and it’s impact on education and health outcomes, write a good one.
12 February 2024 Poor oracy skills are a sign of poor sound processing skills. Sound processing is central to good global development, as the inner ear contains the vestibular system which links motor skills, proprioception, facial muscles, sound and vision. Let’s check all children’s sound processing skills, so that all children have the skills to access a full range of languages and music. ( )
Chris 14 February 2024 It may be the author should see the teaching of Oracy in action. As it is, I鈥檓 not sure what the argument adds to education. No effective teacher who uses Oracy as part of teaching and learning is marginalising working class language. Quite the opposite. Most importantly, good Oracy teaching helps to scaffold and support more complex thinking and that is the driver for social mobility. It seems we have already moved on from the outdated, original research. Oracy is about taking a place in the room, participating and thinking deeply. It promotes high expectations and helps teachers develop. Teaching is a complex business and we should be constantly questioning and evaluating. It鈥檚 more complex than getting children talking in class and I can鈥檛 see how this article helps us.
David Russell 20 February 2024 I assume this article is a heavily edited travesty of what the author actually writes in his academic work. I hope so anyway. Two big problems with the article: (1) it makes the basic error (or oratorical trick) of confusing *necessary* with *sufficient*. (i.e. “Some people say oracy is necessary for social justice; but I say it’s not sufficient, as social injustice is about much more than poor oracy” – good rhetoric, terrible logic). (2) it seems to be saying that poor vocabulary was *wrongly* seen as a deficit in the past, and implies that earlier academics were engaging in snobbish classism by defining households where a smaller number of words were used as being linguistically poorer or ‘in deficit’. It implies that the ‘deficit-model roots’ of the oracy concept are inherently problematic. But even setting aside aspects of oracy such as fluency, simply having a smaller vocabulary than others literally is a deficit. It’s a deficit of word choice for personal expression [active vocab] and for comprehension [passive vocab]. You might argue of course that it’s not actually a *relevant* deficit, and that having an expansive vocabulary is not really very important at all, and is just used as an artificial class barrier; but if you wanted to argue that you’d probably not want to do it in an article that uses words like “marginalised”, “characterised”, “purportedly” and “entrenched social immobility”. Words and concepts, in other words, that are well out of reach of a child who has only been exposed to a deficient linguistic environment. Or is it a case of “lots of big words are necessary for me, but not for them” ?…..