Why do we need a curriculum for speaking and listening?
- Most schools believe that they do focus on Speaking and Listening, and many have identified pupils’ oracy and limited vocabulary as being major inhibitors to pupil progress.
- In reality, only a few schools can claim to have a clear curriculum that is progressive and links oracy activities to improvements in learning across a range of subjects.
- It is no surprise that the recent Ofsted report, ‘Telling the Story: the English education subject report’, pinpoints the issue.
- ‘Schools (often) do not consider spoken language well in their English curriculum, although they understand that spoken language underpins pupils’ reading and writing development.’
- ‘Few schools design or follow a curriculum to develop pupils’ spoken language. Schools are not always clear about how to teach the conventions of spoken language that enable pupils to speak competently in a range of contexts. Teachers often attribute pupils’ weaknesses in speaking to a lack of confidence rather than realising that they have not been taught what they need to know about the topic under discussion to be able to form and articulate worthwhile contributions.’
- The challenge is that whilst schools give prominence to the teaching of phonics, often driven by government initiatives, including the phonics screening check in Year 1, they do not give equal cognisance to the development of children’s oracy skills, especially improving the use of Standard English. This can lead to many children who have ‘cracked’ word reading not making the expected progress when it comes to reading comprehension, which in turn leads to many not having a ‘life-long love for reading’.
- Even early literacy texts follow the conventions of Standard English, and books require children to have a ‘code of talk’ that many will not be familiar with when they start school.
- It is, therefore, imperative that enriching children’s vocabulary, providing them with time to improve their spoken English and helping them to present their findings more confidently should be a major part of our English curriculum. While many would argue that these are important components, and schools genuinely recognise their importance, the level of consistency across schools and within schools is not as it should be.
- Part of the answer is to have in place a specific curriculum that is more than outlining expectations at different ages; a curriculum that gives weight to improving Standard English, increasing children’s vocabulary (including subject-specific vocabulary), supporting them in presenting their findings with confidence and listen more attentively.
- In addition, a school’s pedagogical approach needs to give greater weight to linking new learning (including their reading) to individuals’ experiences and to provide more opportunities for them to revisit prior knowledge.
What will The Curriculum for Speaking and Listening provide?
- The curriculum framework will cover four distinct areas:
- Being confident presenters
- Improving Standard English
- Increasing Vocabulary
- Listening attentively.
The pedagogical approach
- The curriculum will look at reading and its potential link to improving children’s use of speaking and listening.
- It will give an opportunity to consider such matters as ‘creating a speaking and listening environment in the classroom’.
- It will support children in making links with their own experiences during whole class reading sessions.
- It will guide staff in their questioning and using phrases such as ‘Has anyone a learning link to what we have just read…’
Outlining expectations
- Expectations for outcomes will include:
- Narrating
- Persuading
- Instructing
- Receiving Instructions
- Discussing
- Debating
- Explaining, and
- Questioning.
We are currently putting the finishing touches to a curriculum for SPEAKING AND LISTENING. If you would like more information when its released, please contact customerservice@focus-education.co.uk
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