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FutureLearn

An Introduction to Oracy in the Classroom

McGraw Hill via FutureLearn

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Overview

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Take the next steps in your teaching career with McGraw Hill

Ready to unlock the potential of oracy in your classroom? This introductory five-week course from McGraw Hill will help you enhance communication skills in the classroom.

You’ll learn foundational concepts in classroom talk, using real examples across diverse schools and age groups. By the end, you’ll have the knowledge to make informed choices about integrating oracy in your classroom.

Use classroom talk to elevate your teaching skills

Each week, you’ll explore key aspects of oracy in the classroom, gradually building your expertise.

You’ll learn to explain and evaluate various perspectives on the importance of classroom talk, enabling you to articulate the value of oracy in fostering student engagement.

Next, you’ll identify and address motivations and challenges in creating talk-focused lessons, equipping you with the tools to enhance student interactions.

Help support academic development in your students

Purposeful classroom talk, or oracy, is increasingly recognised as fundamental for supporting both personal and academic development and for enhancing genuine participation in learning. Based on classroom observations and interviews, this course offers an analysis of schools’ responses to improving the quality of both learning to talk and talking to learn.

You’ll learn to identify various contexts where classroom talk can thrive, allowing you to provide students with opportunities to practise oracy.

Grow in your role as a teacher

Finally, you’ll learn to develop both whole-class and peer-to-peer talk in your classroom.

By the end, you’ll have the tools to transform your classroom through purposeful communication.

After completing this course, take your learning further with Classroom Oracy in Action.

This course is designed for those already in the teaching profession as well as those on a teacher education course or other education related course (undergraduate or postgraduate). You might be a graduate looking at teaching as a first career, or exploring a potential career change.

This introductory course is the first of two McGraw Hill courses on classroom talk and we encourage learners to continue with our accompanying course Classroom Oracy in Action.

The course will help you to explore classroom talk through the analysis and comparison of examples drawn from diverse schools and age groups, across primary and secondary education settings. Alongside a wealth of practical strategies, this holistic and accessible course offers an insight into teachers’ thinking and the realities of implementation, helping teachers to make well-informed judgments about developing classroom talk within their own schools.

Syllabus

  • Making the case for classroom talk
    • Introduction: Learning from practice
    • Different perspectives on classroom talk
    • The communicative competence argument
    • The cognitive argument
    • The student voice argument
    • Wrap Up
  • Classroom talk in practice
    • Introduction: Making sense of classroom talk
    • Introducing the concept of oracy
    • Motivations for a focus on talk
    • Perceived challenges of a focus on talk
    • Wrap Up
  • Learning to talk and about talk
    • Introduction: Contexts and opportunities for talk
    • Scaffolding talk
    • Talking about talk
    • An asset-based approach
    • Wrap Up
  • Talking as a whole class
    • Introduction: Creating the conditions for whole-class talk
    • Participating in talk
    • Working with responses: The third move
    • Talking and writing
    • Wrap Up
  • Talking with peers
    • The benefits of peer talk
    • Designing tasks for peer talk
    • Ground Rules for talk
    • The teacher's role in peer talk
    • Wrap Up

Taught by

Alice Aldous

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