Why? Students, due to apathy or due to the state school pandemic of not wanting to sound clever, often avoid giving a thorough explanation to reveal the depth of their learning; rather, given the chance, they will utter a barely audible ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and quickly retreat back into their protective shells. Sound familiar?

Possible solution. To combat this – a simple solution: have high expectations of students’ oracy so that they respond in full sentences.

a) To achieve this, get students to rephrase your question as part of their answer.

For example: Why does Dickens open his novel, Bleak House, with pathetic fallacy?

Student answer: Dickens opens his novel, Bleak House, with pathetic fallacy because…

b) When posing an open-ended question, provide an oral scaffold to extend students’ thinking.

Resources.
An example slide scaffolding oracy.

Outcome. Having high expectations around students’ oracy has resulted in students providing in-depth feedback as opposed to giving one word answers. In English, levels can also be attached to the quality of student responses: level 5 is linked with being able to explain your ideas; level 6 requires students to explore ideas, thereby showing that information can be interpreted in different ways.  As a result, students have evolved to see the value and importance of talk in a lesson – no longer is it an opportunity to doze off or give a mere one word answer, which had previously given them the impression that they were making a meaningful contribution to the lesson – but, by giving extended answers, students now realise that this is an integral part to the lesson. It has also helped to bridge the gap between the talking and writing stage of the lesson. Students recognise that if they can articulate their ideas verbally, this also helps them to translate their ideas to the page.

Post submitted by:

Steve Gill

English Teacher

@MrGillEnglish

#neverstoplearning

Feedback. Please let us know how ‘Developing oracy: Getting students to respond in full sentences’ worked for you. Leave a comment on this post or tweet us at @nslhub.