TALK REALLY MATTERS. In its chapter on pedagogy, the CPR final report highlighted classroom talk as the point where the research evidence on children’s development, learning and effective teaching most obviously and urgently converges. We neglect talk at children’s peril, for it is one of the keys to empowering them as thinkers, learners and citizens. Yet, in their evidence to the CPR many of our witnesses complained that oracy just isn’t taken seriously enough where it matters. They told us that the current national curriculum version of ‘speaking and listening’ is weakly conceived, that it wrongly detaches oracy from literacy, and that there remains considerable political ambivalence about
whether, beyond basic communication skills, talk is really as crucial to learning as its advocates claim.
It is crucial. The evidence is clear and convincing. The CPR has therefore argued, in both its final report and its submission to the current national curriculum review, that oracy should have a much higher profile across the whole curriculum, not just in national curriculum English where it currently appears.
That’s why we support Hello, the 2011 national year of communication, and No Pens Day (28 September 2011, or another date at about that time) when children and teachers are asked to put down their pens, turn off their screens and concentrate on TALK. Will you join us in supporting Hello and the power of talk in this very tangible – and indeed audible – way? Several hundred schools have already committed themselves.