Oracy - talk is cheap but group work is costly

For years, I have struggled with ‘group work’ in lessons. And, I’d admit that that was born out of a sense of control and desire to manage the behaviour in the classroom effectively. You can monitor and control behaviour easily if only one person is speaking at any one time. You can address rule breakers and reinforce the rules quickly and simply. Tom, remember the rule: only one person speaks at a time. Controlling group work is like controlling a box of frogs. No sooner have you returned one frog back to the box then another three have jumped out and moved in three different directions. The energy involved and chaotic nature of group work has made group work the last thing teachers want to do. 

Added to all that, there is a cost to curriculum content coverage. If you are pressed for time in your curriculum, it is easier to tell students rather than have them explore it at a more leisurely pace. Instead of getting students to unpick sources behind population change in an area, we tell them and skip that whole finding out for themselves. We could ask the question: has curriculum content increased to cause this? To answer this, I would say that our relationship with content has changed rather than there being an increase. Instead of an exploratory attitude towards knowledge and ideas, we have honed in on an attitude of knowing everything in great detail - without mercy. Instead of studying a text for English they are learning the technical manual which is devoid of any meaning, thought, insight. For English teachers, we seem to be going down a very Gradgrind path: 

‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind.  ‘Your definition of a horse.’

‘Quadruped.  Graminivorous.  Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive.  Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too.  Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron.  Age known by marks in mouth.’  Thus (and much more) Bitzer.

‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind.  ‘You know what a horse is.’

The problem is that we have been subtly edged to this point. It wasn’t a big push, but a gradual creep. When we, and schools, place so much emphasis on the exams and content, we miss out on the ability to form ideas and opinions of our own. And, that was what Dickens was alluding to in the section of Hard Times. Facts and knowledge are only a part of the process of learning and they are not the only part of learning. The student’s interaction with the knowledge. The use of knowledge to create new thoughts and ideas and connections. Yes, they might know what a horse is technically, but do they have any opinions or thoughts of their own. If we don’t provide the space for thought, then how will thoughts be created? Only a few years ago people were mad for the word and concept ‘schema’ and they were talking about how important it was, yet we never really thought about how group work and group discussion is a part of that. 

So, why have I made a significant u-turn on group work? I think it is a drastic change in how students do speaking and listening assessments for GCSE English. We have seen a dramatic increase in avoidance and pure panic when asking students to talk for an assessed piece. And, I think we have to hold our hands up with this one. We have produced an experience where talk is the last thing students experience in schools. Silent corridors. Silent work. Reading in silence. Writing in silence. Revising in silence. When silence is the dominant mode of work, then is there any wonder students have a meltdown when thinking that they’ll have to talk on a topic of their choice for a few minutes. 

I like the fact that oracy has come to the forefront of discussion, but I fear that it is going to be lost in a sea of mediocrity by people focusing on paired talk, cold calling and presentations. I think schools need to position group work at the front of this oracy drive and how it is used in lessons. Why? Because group work is talk without thirty eyes on you. It is without social pressure. It isn’t performative. It isn’t judged. But, it allows students to articulate thoughts. It allows them to test things out. It allows them to listen to others. It allows them to interact with different audiences. It allows them to find, test, practice their voice without judgement. 

I would say as a head of department talking in a group is one of the most important aspects of my job. In fact, I’d be bold to say that if there aren't regular group discussions within departments, within curriculum leader meetings, with SLT meetings then you have a problem within your school. Talk solves problems. Talk probes issues. Talk challenges the status quo. Talk does so much, yet we don’t apply it to lessons. Yet, it doesn’t stop there. How many family issues have been resolved by talking?

What are the problems that we need to address when dealing with group work in the classroom? What do we need to address these problems? 

[1] There needs to be a clear sense of purpose and a concrete outcome. 

All too often, there is a case of doing stuff rather than an overall outcome and a measure to check that things have been done. It might be a table, sheet or a presentation, but there needs to be a clear outcome and a way for the students and teacher to measure or see completion. 

[2] The task needs planning. 

Planning is usually a major pitfall. For most group tasks, there is a need to segment the overall task or separate the different processes.  

[3] Roles in a group change. 

This is a big one. How many times have you watched The Apprentice to see them arguing for ages about who should be the leader? If you watch group discussions, you see that the leader changes many times. Assign roles like that, and you end up with very little productivity because people are too focused on the role and not focused on the processes that lead to the end result. 

[4] Rules that ensure collective responsibility. 

Rules often focus on how people speak and yet they don’t always focus on collective responsibility. That is more important for me. All students participate and engage in the discussion and task. The rules need to reflect that. 

[5] Talk needs acceptance regardless of the type of talk. 

This is a tricky one. It is one of the biggest problems for teachers. It is acceptable for people to go off topic or have two conversations going at once. How many teachers have had a conversation about something unrelated during an INSET task? Everyone. That’s because we naturally go off topic. We can and we do dual function in conversations. Social talk is an important part of the process. Humans need to talk otherwise things become functional. 

[6] Monitoring needs to happen from the teacher. 

Group work is never a task for the teacher to sit back and catch up with emails. A teacher should be a helicopter. Going from one group to another. Listening. Stepping in if support is needed. But, they are not there to be the talk police. They should be facilitating what is going on, but allowing students to solve things by themselves with the minimum input. 

I hope that some of what I have said has given some food for thought. We need to overcome this dread and fear of group work. It isn’t the elixir of a teacher, but also it isn’t the poison of teaching. It is a method and a process to explore and learn. We’ve got so used to it being a swear word in teaching. Like many things, it can be done badly if done half-heartedly. My fear is that this drive on oracy is about the performance of speech rather than the use of speech and the social aspects of talk. Talk is so powerful and if we are not careful we make it quite simplistic and reductive. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

We need to talk about oracy

Silence might be  golden, but talk is magical. 

It is interesting that the latest focus is on oracy when the past decade has been obsessed around silence. We’ve obsessed around silent students, silent classrooms and silent corridors. The major proxy for learning has been silence. SLT have been patrolling corridors to see that classrooms are quiet. Good teaching has always been marked by the amount of silence there is. Silence is golden. Noisy is excrement. 

As a parent, I know that a silent child is not a good thing. 

Silence is easy to create, patrol, police, enforce, control, make and monitor. In fact, in schools it is the one thing that is pretty easy to get. Our obsession with silence is because of the messiness of talking. It defies structures, lists, ticklists and so on. It is ephemeral. It is chimerical. It is a shapeshifter. It is so much harder to define, observe, and teach than silence. And that’s the crux of it. Silence is easy. Talking is difficult.  

The irony now is that these silent classrooms now need to show some oracy. Some talk. Some chattering. Some blethering. We have schools scrabbling to write oracy policies, as nothing shows Ofsted that you take something seriously like a policy. But, like using a pneumatic drill to crack a nut, we are destined for sledgehammer approaches. We’ve some of these already like forcing students to only speak in full sentences. Boy, that must make answering the register. Sir, I am here sat on my chair. Sir, I am also here. Or, we will see enforced talking opportunities in lessons. We will see everything turned into a debate. Right, we’ve covered hot and cold colour so let’s debate about our favourite colour! Or, we might see a continuous pattern of chat before you write approaches adopted by schools. 

Because oracy is messy and complex we really struggle to frame it in lessons. We know for reading and writing that there are a number of processes to think about before students read or write. We know their level of proficiency. We know what we can do to help them. We know that we can approach reading or writing from a particular ange to be more conducive to learning. Do we have the same for talking in the classroom? The answer is no. We tend to narrow talk to those that are compliant and those who are not. 

If a school is going to tackle oracy, then then need to look at the processes involved. And, I mean really look. Those could mean joining an existing conversation , showing the speaker I am listening, keeping a conversation going, changing the direction of a conversation and so on. There is so much to pick. So let’s start with turn taking. Something that every teacher can work on in most if not all lessons. 

How do we teach turn taking in lessons? 

It is important to think about this in conversations and in particular for some SEND students. We make assumptions about these things. 

Think about these questions: 

• What is a turn? 

• What do I do if I want a turn? 

• What does it mean when it is my turn? 

• How long is a turn? 

• How do I start my turn? 

• How do I end my turn? 

• What do I do when it is someone else's turn? 

• What do I do if I don’t get a turn? 

The insistence of cold calling means that some of these things are not reinforced in the classroom environment. They are also not reinforced at home or at meal times. As a parent, you know that you tend to do a lot of this learning over meals. Can I finish what I was saying first? Let your sister finish what she was saying. 

From a teacher’s perspective, these questions are important to have because we are the modellers and course correctors in lessons. Look at these possible comments by a teacher. 

• Tom, what do we do when we are waiting for our turn? 

• Tom, you didn’t get a go. What should you have done? 

• Tom, you need to think about others having a go now. 

• Tom, that isn’t what we do when we want to show we’d like a turn. 

As you can see, it is the teacher indirectly reinforcing the rules. The teacher is teaching turn taking through their interaction and their questions or comments. They are not doing it before and frontloading things but as they speak. And that’s the rub. Oracy is done in the process and not frontloaded before the process. Teachers have to get their hands dirty and teach in the middle of the process as it is going on. It isn’t a checklist. It isn’t a Powerpoint slide. It isn’t a worksheet. It isn’t a YouTube video.  

Oracy is far more complex and I worry that schools are over simplifying it to the point of it being ineffective. Children need teachers to be course correctors in speech. Schools need to be looking at lessons and thinking how teacher interactions can support oracy. And, that is largely in the moment. If it was me, I would be looking at student and teacher conversations in lessons in training. What could the teacher have said here to support oracy? 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

P.S. I plan to blog more on oracy over the next few weeks. 

Oracy - The infamous ‘I don’t know’.

One of the things about oracy is that we often focus on the what rather than the how students speak. Communication is much more than words and phrases. It is how we control the flow of speech. Or, more importantly, how we empower students to dive in and swim in the spoken discourse. 

One area I have been working on, with some success, is dealing with the infamous ‘I don’t know’. The blanket answer for a lot of things in school. But, under that ‘I don’t know’ there is so much more. It isn’t just a simple ‘I don’t know’. Here are just some possible things going on: 

I can’t be bothered to answer 

I genuinely don’t know the answer

I am scared of getting it wrong 

I wasn’t listening to the question 

I don’t want attention drawn to me

I know the answer but I don’t want people to think less of me  

I have an idea but I am not a hundred percent sure it is right 

A simple ‘I don’t know’ is never that simple. There’s the issue of the social implications to factor in too. The fear of getting it right can be as equal to getting it wrong. The positive affirmation of the teacher is negated by the negative comments of their peers. 

All too often ‘I don’t know’ is the quick way out. And, in fairness, the problem is repeated again and again in lessons. Largely, it is a communication problem rather than a knowledge question. Yes, they might lack the knowledge, but there’s a problem with what to do when there is insecure knowledge. We are all hazy at times about knowledge, but we’ve learnt strategies to cope or deal with this haziness. People are people. 

One thing a student did this week, that I really liked, was to boldly prefix a comment with ‘In my opinion’ when discussing an idea about a text. The great thing about that was that she was ringfencing the comment. By framing the comment as an ‘opinion’ there’s wiggle room. It is now an opinion, which, as we know with opinions, they are there to be agreed or disagreed. They are not right or wrong. That framing of answers is such an important thing for students and adults to do. Another one is ‘This is a guess but…’. Both examples show how students can frame answers to support them. 

How we deal and articulate answers is crucial. Education is awash with knowledge retrieval but I fear how we do it can be quite narrowing in terms of communication. Compare these two options: 

[1]  Tim, answer question 4 for me. 

[2] Tim, which question would you like to answer for me? 

Number 1 is very limiting and relies on the student having an answer or guessing if not sure. Number 2 puts the student in control and helps ensure confidence in the answering process. They might have questions they are not sure of, but it gives them the option of which one they pick. They are still answering the question, but on their terms. This is my preferred way and I only switch to 1 if I want to check a precise student has got a precise bit of information. 

We’d all like confident students and I think as teachers there’s things we can do to create that confidence, but there is a space for doubt in the classroom. And, there’s something we can teach students about ‘doubtful answers’ and more importantly ‘doubtful answering’. A large majority of students will only answer a question if they are a hundred percent certain  the answer is correct. You can see that on exam papers. Why did they leave a large number of questions unanswered? They were unanswered because they were ‘doubtful answers’ and the student only feels comfortable answering with ‘certain answers’. This becomes such a difficult thing to unpick.  

Instead, we need to help students deal with ‘doubtful answering’ on a regular basis and in every lesson. Not every question needs to be answered with the confidence of a god. In fact, we need to embrace ‘doubting Thomas’ in our lessons. That caution. That hesitancy. That uncomfortable feeling. The language we and the students use need to build in ‘doubtful answering’. To start this off, I have produced a list of things for students to say instead of ‘I don’t know or not sure’.

Could you give me a minute to think about it? 

Could you reword the question for me? 

Could you give me a clue about where I can find the answer to the question? 

Could you come back to me with another question later? 

This is a guess but I think it is … 

This is all so students can work around this doubtful answering questions. Students need options and largely in the classroom they feel like there are no options. It is either right or wrong. We need to help students answer questions and that happens at the point of questioning. That’s why the above questions are on a poster next to my board. We do something instead of saying ‘I don’t know’. We give students options to reframe the question. 

Communication is about options. Part of oracy is highlighting the options available to a student. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris