National Curriculum

"We need to be much more aware of the learning potential of talk; of the ways in which teaching might assist children's spoken language development; of the best ways of gathering information and eventually making informed assessments of children's talk; and through all this, how our behaviour as teachers in our planning of the curriculum, in our interactions with children and our discussions with other colleagues, can best contribute to the kind of classroom and school climate most conducive to oracy." [Howe, 1997.]

In the 1970's, projects led by linguists and educationalists such as Wilkinson [1965,] Vygotsky [1978,] and Bruner and Bruner [1986,] recognised the importance of oracy in the primary classroom. It was not until The National Oracy Project; [1987-1993,] that the National Curriculum finally advocated the need for speaking and listening to be ‘an essential part of the National Curriculum for English.' Corden [2000, p1.] It represented a third of English in the National curriculum alongside reading and writing. However, in 1998 the National Literacy Strategy Framework [NLSF,] was implemented as a statutory requirement in England and as optional material in Wales. The framework focused on reading and writing,
The interactive whiteboard was used in every lesson I observed and I saw individual whiteboards being used when introducing adverbs to the class. Whole class discussion was a feature of all lessons which promotes ‘collaborative learning in which pupils are active participants...' Howe, [1997, p13.] I also witnessed the use of talk partners in a language lesson which ‘can give children an opportunity to think things through,' Grugeon [2005, p90.] In this example, the pupils discussed with their partners how a character in the book might feel giving them time to formulate their thoughts before feeding back to the