Topic: Young Learners | Oracy Development
Presenter: Daniel Man-Hon Tse
Presentation details
Oracy has attracted renewed interest in current ELT discourse as it is a vital skill that benefits learners’ interpersonal communication and academic achievements. How can EFL teachers develop learners’ oracy skills? In this talk, we shall explore three collaborative group projects with Young Learners and teenagers. By using a synthesis of three frameworks for oracy development, I aim to illustrate various “oracy moments”—or learning opportunities—at each stage of the three projects.
I shall begin my talk with a quick survey of the audience’s understanding of oracy. As there are different interpretations of it ranging from debating skills to fluency training, I shall refer to Wilkinson’s (1970) original idea as the basis for discussion.
After establishing the meaning of oracy, the audience and I will turn to three different frameworks for oracy development. These frameworks are designed by the English-Speaking Union, National Literacy Trust, and Voice 21-Oracy Cambridge. I shall provide a synthesis of the framework content by identifying the key common elements, which are translated into intrapersonal skills (general speaking and cognition) and interpersonal skills (communication and social). These skills in turn become the targets for learning.
Subsequently, the audience and I will explore three collaborative group projects: making a time capsule in a task-based course with primary learners, inventing fusion dishes in a task-based course with young teenagers, and a spoken proposal related to issues in the local community in a topic-based course with older teenagers. All of these projects broadly follow the same stages: setting up, preparation and practice, presentation, and follow-on. For each project stage, I shall identify several key opportunities for teachers to develop the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills that underlie learners’ oracy. This involves looking at what the learners do collaboratively as well as the teacher’s roles in facilitating oracy development.
About the presenter
Daniel Tse works as a teacher and examiner in Italy. He teaches EFL at the British Council as well as EAP and general English at several Italian universities. He previously taught at International House Milan for six years. In addition to teaching, Daniel is involved in teacher training as a CLIL trainer in 2024-25 and a speaker for Macmillan Education Italy since 2024. He contributes articles regularly to the International House Journal. He has also spoken at conferences including IATEFL.