Oracy-Dialogics^*

* The term Oracy-Dialogics links the word oracy with Robin Alexander’s definition of dialogics that has two dimensions: ‘pupil oracy’ and teachers’ ‘oral pedagogy’ (Alexander 2012). Both pupil talk and teacher, pedagogic talk involve speaking, listening, hearing, responding and communicating.

through the lens of the Cambridge primary review

ABSTRACT

Advocates of Oracy-Dialogics argue that it should play the major role in teaching and learning, yet it has also been argued that it plays little part in many teachers’ pedagogic repertoire. This paper considers what is meant by Oracy-Dialogics. Then it describes research in a Cambridge Primary Review flagship school; it analyses the whole school philosophy necessary for Oracy-Dialogics to be successful. Next it describes the implementation of Oracy-Dialogics in a sequence of three lessons with Year 6 pupils, on Ancient Egypt, focusing on three different aspects of Oracy-Dialogics; the oral pedagogy of the teacher, pupil oracy in pair peer interaction and pupil oracy as they interacted as small groups of four. Finally it evaluates pupils’ views about the role and value of Oracy-Dialogics during a topic in which Oracy-Dialogics permeated the teaching style.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancient Egypt
• Cambridge Primary Review
• Dialogics
• Cambridge Primary Review
• group work
• Oracy
• Oracy-Dialogics
• pedagogy
• peer interaction
• Robin Alexander
• Year 6–10/11 year olds

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* The term Oracy-Dialogics links the word oracy with Robin Alexander’s definition of dialogics that has two dimensions: ‘pupil oracy’ and teachers’ ‘oral pedagogy’ (Alexander 2012). Both pupil talk and teacher, pedagogic talk involve speaking, listening, hearing, responding and communicating.

2. Poet and broadcaster, Children’s Laureate, 2007–2009, national authority and voice of sanity on both literacy and children’s literature.

3. I can remember in 1976 as a young teacher the publication of the inspirational Bullock report and our head holding staff meetings in which he made this very point – language across the curriculum needed full staff participation and commitment. Plus ca change?

4. This document was posted along with all other CPR curricula materials and information on the St. James school website. Following academisation in 2016 and the scrapping of the school’s CPR curriculum the school has removed all information about it from its website. Il est mort. All names in this paper are fictional.

5. The NPHP was a response to the1991 British government introduction of a national curriculum in which all schools had to teach history as a statutory subject for 5–14 year olds. In that year the Nuffield Foundation funded ‘a new primary history project [the NPHP] which aimed to examine the National Curriculum and explore its implications for the teaching of primary history’ (Fines and Nichol 1997, viii). Using Action Research the NPHP created a comprehensive pedagogic repertoire that included all aspects of the national curriculum’s History programme of study. The repertoire consisted of both teacher briefings, guidance and advice and exemplar, model lessons for each national history curriculum topic. The exemplar lessons are still available and widely used via the Times Educational Supplement and Historical Association website.

6. Deliberately echoing Marc Bloch’s book The Historian’s Craft (1953). He was one of the world’s greatest historians who was also A French resistance fighter in World War II whom the Nazis murdered in 1943.

7. Rosie Turner-Bisset became a national expert on history teaching through her involvement with the Nuffield Primary History Project.