Making the case for oracy skills in higher education: practices and opportunities

Abstract

In this paper I make the case for embedding oracy practices in the HE curriculum through explicit teaching of oracy skills and a shared common language to describe these skills. Active learning and teaching approaches as well as growing expectations of graduate employability skills have resulted in greater demands on students in UK higher education in terms of their oracy (speaking and listening) skills. Whilst oracy skills have long been the focus of studies in compulsory educational contexts, there is little transfer of research findings to a higher education context. With the aim of opening up the discussion on oracy skills in HE, this paper reports on an exploratory study carried out to investigate how teachers on two undergraduate business modules incorporated oral communication skills in their content, pedagogy and assessment. Data were gathered from observations of lectures and seminars, course documents, and semi-structured interviews with tutors. With reference to an Oracy Skills Framework the paper concludes with suggestions for how oracy skills may be more explicitly embedded into the undergraduate curriculum.

Improving Communicative Competence through CLT Approach in Second Language Learning at the Undergraduate Level

“…The applicants had divergent perspectives on the objectives of English language acquisition and the development of their capability in English language learning. According to Heron (2019) and Valdez (2015), to support students' development, teachers need to improve their skills in oral communication and ensure that local and international students have equal opportunities to participate in classroom discussions. This is necessary in order to assist the growth of students.…”

“…Lastly, according to Dune et al (2018), e-portfolios can assist students in reflecting on their cultural responsiveness and communication abilities. In order to increase student participation in the classroom and assist graduates in understanding the significance of communication skills for the job market, resources for academic staff professional development are required (Heron, 2019;Valdez, 2015). For universities to implement the initiatives mentioned above, a framework that targets domestic and international students and embeds communication skills throughout the curriculum (Arkoudis, 2014;Johnson, Veitch, & Dewiyanti, 2015).…”

The Development of L2 (Basque) Oracy Skills Through Dialogic Literary Gatherings

“…This is an exploratory case study (Yin, 2018) that examines oracy skills development on five secondary students in terms of four generic skills such as physical, linguistic, cognitive, and socio-emotional (Mercer et al, 2017). This study is based on the observation of the development of oracy skills as a competence that needs to be explicitly developed in a meaningful way, in which school plays a key role (Heron, 2019; Mercer et al, 2019). This paper draws on qualitative and quantitative data to examine the evolution of oracy skills after implementing DLGs.…”

“…Therefore, encouraging effective use of talk in the classroom is essential to promote collective and individual thinking and learning (Mercer, 2013; Mercer & Howe, 2012). Consequently, creating opportunities for the students to develop oral communication skills that foster these processes in the classroom is essential (Heron, 2019).…”

“…Taking this framework as a reference, Dippold et al (2019) and Heron (2019) introduced dialogic practices to develop oracy skills in higher education. Dialogic practices in the classroom have been found to be effective in promoting interaction between peers (Maine & Hofmann, 2016), with the teacher (Howe et al, 2019; Lyle, 2008) and with other adults in the classroom (Aubert et al, 2017; Valero et al, 2017).…”