Just as ‘literacy’ means ‘competency in written English’ so ‘oracy’ means ‘competence in spoken English.’
This (still relatively new) word ‘oracy’ was coined by British educationalist Andrew Wilkinson in Birmingham in 1965.
He was one of the trendy ‘lets-change-everything’ educationalists, and he had the patronising view that ‘working-class’ children were disadvantaged because conversation in their homes was so poor.
In the rather superior, arrogant, way that Lefties have, he decided that schools had to fix this problem that he had imagined, by giving up teaching English in the old way, and replace it with lots of stuff about speaking better and oral communication.
In his notion of the classroom, just chatting your friends was not a distraction—it was the whole point of education.
This is the kind of thinking that cuts children off from their cultural heritage and makes them less able (not more able) to cope in adult society.
But leaving aside the ideological nonsense that the trendies load on to the notion of ‘oracy’—if done sensibly (and not as a replacement for proper English teaching) something like ‘oracy’ might be a good idea.
For instance, do they still have properly organised debates in high schools?
And debating clubs and debating competitions?
They had them in my day, and I benefitted from them a great deal.
They would teach kids to make an argument and explain their case, in a way those silly, demonstrating kids on the streets are not able to do.
While the brain-washed demonstrators are against Pauline Hanson, they are completely incapable of explaining why.
‘Explaining’ is part of ‘oracy.’
And if they had to defend their ideas against another debating team that disagreed with them, it would do them a power of good.
Sadly, I have little hope that this sort of ‘oracy’ will make an appearance in our schools any time soon!
For Perth readers -- today I will talk words and language with Tod Johnston on 'The Long Lunch' On 6PR -- at around 12:20pm.
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