The aim is to capture teachers' implicit oracy construct across disciplines through surveying 495 teachers on a high-stakes oral national exam in the 10th grade. The survey and the results were interpreted with concepts and ideas from rhetorical theory and tradition. The results of the study show that teachers value a complex oracy construct. The teachers' genre expectancy for oracy seem to be a balance between the three modes of persuasion: logos (i.e., subject specific content), ethos (the ability to display character), and pathos (the ability to have an emotional influence on the audience). The constructs have specific discipline characteristics as well as features that are consistent within disciplines. For teachers, a pattern of a unified oracy construct is developed from, and embedded in, their collective everyday practices, culture, and traditions. The discussion raises issues related to future curriculum development and educational sustainability.

This special issue is the first issue in the history of 20 years of the L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature on Oracy. That might be an indication of the lack of research in L1-oracy. With this special issue we would like to stimulate other researchers in L1-Education to study oracy. Oracy is the most utilized and basic form of human communication, and is fundamental in being able to express oneself as well as participating in civic life. Oracy makes humans available for each other's expressed inner thoughts, and for ourselves. In return, oracy makes humans unique as a species (Tomasello, 2010). We acquire the language system. We develop oral competence. At the same time we practice and improve our language learning system, establishing the basis for the acquisition of other languages and the written code, and opening the window to the world of words and concepts. We learn by mirroring each other, through complex interaction with gestures, vocal language, and cognition (Tomasello, 2010). As humans, we, learn and develop from each other's responses. Oracy is productive, sharing one's own thoughts by converting thoughts into language and sounds as well as receptive, processing received sounds into meaning. Production and reception goes often hand in hand, e.g. in a conversation: give and take. Settings can vary along many dimensions, like the direction (a pure monologue vs a dialogue), the number of participants (speaking to an audience of 100 listeners

Denne studien undersøker hva lærere forstår som god muntlighet (tale- og lytte­kompetanse samt kroppsspråk) i og på tvers av fag, samt lærernes oppfatninger om egne forutsetninger for å undervise og vurdere muntlighet. Bakteppet er den norske lære­planen hvor muntlighet er en av de fem grunnleggende kompetansene som skal læres og vurderes på tvers av fagene. Vurderingsplanen for denne grunnleggende kom­petansen ble imidlertid ikke revidert samtidig med læreplanen; dermed ble ansvaret for vurderingen lagt på hver enkelt lærer. For å avdekke begrunnelsene bak lærernes uttrykte konseptualisering, undervisning og vurdering av muntlighet, ble en retorisk-topologisk analyse av kvalitative intervjuer med ni tiendeklasselærere på ungdoms­trinnet utført. Funnene indikerer at lærerne synes arbeidet med muntlighet i klasse­rommet er utfordrende siden de opplever å ha lite eller ingen utdannelse i undervisning og vurdering av muntlighet å støtte seg til. Lærere verdsetter muntlighet, som har fagspesifikke egenskaper og som samtidig innebærer konsistente trekk på tvers av fagområder. Resultatene viser at lærerne er fremtidsorienterte og fremmer elevenes evne til å uttrykke seg i et trygt læringsmiljø som er et springbrett til myndighet, livsmestring, kritisk tenkning, demokrati og retorisk medborgerskap.

Background: The Norwegian framework for teacher education serves to both provide a pathway for professional qualification and lay a foundation for educators to meet present and future challenges. Complementing work with teacher educators in the university classroom, a key focus of the framework is pre-service teaching practice, which aims to increase student teachers' knowledge, skills, and competencies via a triangular partnership among student teachers and teacher educators both in pre-service teaching practice and on campus. The aim of the study was to interview student teachers to investigate how their pre-service teaching practice can be better organized to meet these goals. Methods: Our data is based on six semistructured interviews and one focus group with six student teachers situated at the Oslo and Akershus University College and analyzed using inductive content analysis. The study was approved at the Norwegian Data Directorate. Results: The analysis revealed five categories that influence student teachers` pedagogical insight through pre-service teaching practice. These five categories were: Reflection plenaries on regular basis, the understanding of the relationship between theory and practice, teacher educators as mentors, and different competence and asymmetry in the mentoring process. Conclusions: To optimize pedagogical insight through pre-service teaching practice, our results emphasize the need to ensure quality throughout pre-service teacher training and clear guidelines for teacher educators. In particular, our sample of student teachers sought greater supervision and focus from teacher educators on the relationship between theory and practice, via use of reflection plenaries, and found most helpful pedagogical context that emphasized equal partnership with their teacher educators.

This article positions rhetoric as a bridge between oracy and citizenship education. The first comparative curricular study of Scotland, Slovenia and Norway, it demonstrates shared policy aims and practical challenges in the delivery of oracy and citizenship education in these three nations. We argue that the study of rhetoric equips young learners with the skills to think critically, listen actively and speak strategically. But rhetoric goes further than existing policy ambitions for oracy; it includes civic training, and cultivates skills for democratic deliberation and participation in society. Rhetoric empowers young people with the knowledge and skills to construct compelling arguments, and deconstruct the arguments of others, thereby cultivating eloquent and critical citizens. We explore the motivations for the teaching of rhetoric (to learners aged 7–16) in each national educational system, which range from significant coverage (Slovenia) to scant reference (Scotland), with Norway representing the middle ground, and we assess the importance of ancient teachings of rhetoric in contemporary classrooms. We outline the policy and curricular challenges associated with training teachers to teach rhetoric and share testimonies from both staff and students regarding their learning experiences with something which is ‘new’ to many, yet ‘ancient’ to some.