Ann Wright - What impact does targeted Oracy within KS3 Art & Design lessons have in overall levels of confidence and use of subject specific language? Delivered over part of the Summer Term. IntentTo improve levels of Oracy within Art & Design lessons at KS3, and further support whole school Oracy.
The issue – Currently KS3 students do not have the confidence and skills to speak fluently about Art images, and also their own Artwork, leading to less depth of understanding of concepts and contexts further on within the Art & Design Curriculum at GCSE and A Level.
Target students The group I selected was aYr7 Art group, mainly as they are a mixed ability group that I had enough time to carry out several excercises, in order to make some useful judgements and see how effective the strategies might be.
Research The main aim is to keep building on the research I have done previously and extend the Departmental strategies we have begun to devise regarding Oracy. T. Sherrington and S. Stafford (Great Teaching Techniques: A Culture of Speech) say that, ‘By creating a wide range of speech opportunities within the curriculum, we can ensure that students develop fluency in the formal Standard English’. I know that there is often an acute time pressure within Art & Design lessons to focus on the practical skills, so in order to support and nurture an ‘Oracy Culture’ there must be a shift in the balance of practical time over speaking and discussion time in the Art & Design Department. My aim is to start at the most basic levels of Oracy and build from there. As N Mercer highlights, ‘the role of the ‘school’ environment being some students only chance to develop a repertoire of talking skills’ means there is a real need for Oracy. As Mercer comments ‘It is too easy for us all to assume that a young person has mastered ‘Oracy’ automatically’. From this viewpoint I decided to show and model how to speak about Artwork via two tasks which I have trialled with Year Seven students. I gained much inspiration from publications such as Voice 21 Speaking Frankly which states that, ‘Good levels of Oracy are achieved when students are given opportunities to…’ ‘Develop a range of verbal skills, and are introduced to Oracy with clear guidance when using key vocabulary.’ The tasks I have tried out have made a start on the journey towards more eloquent students at CEC. Suggestions from this the Speaking Frankly publication are: Creating familiar and established talk protocols. Using sentence stems to prompt pupils to engage with the contributions of their classmates and give reasons for their views, whilst a list of target vocabulary highlights higher-level language for students to select and use. For teachers to get students in class to talk in purposeful and meaningful ways, to model good speaking and listening in their practice, track their pupils’ progress in speaking skills and value and celebrate the spoken word. Carry out explicit planning and intentional guiding of pupils’ talk (such as scaffolding discussions and giving students talking guidelines and roles). ‘Talk supports thinking, and that means it supports learning.’ 224
