About the project
Together with our partners, we are working on research and competence development to promote oral proficiency in both primary and higher education.
Good oral skills are not something we are born with but something we must develop and learn. Oral skills must be understood in the light of context and culture, and they change over time.
In this project, we are investigating how oral skills are being developed, whether oral skills are changing, and whether we need new skills today.
The project aims to develop knowledge and support teachers in their work with students' oral proficiency.
Background
Oral skills involve creating meaning through listening, speaking, and conversing. Such skills are a prerequisite for demonstrating competence.
The Norwegian curriculum defines oral skills as a basic skill and a necessary tool for learning and development in all subjects. However, there has been less focus on oral skills than on the other basic skills in the curriculum.
In a participatory democracy, it is important for everyone to have the opportunity to develop skills to speak in public, present and argue through speech, as well as to investigate arguments presented by others.
Research has shown that dialogic teaching can promote oral skills because this type of teaching encourages a lot of oral activity and participation from the students.
More knowledge is needed on how teachers can strengthen the work on oral skills in classrooms that accommodate students with different backgrounds and prerequisites. There is also a need for more knowledge on how technology can be used to promote oral participation.
Tools and resources
The researchers in the Oral Mastery project collaborate with the University of Cambridge and the Thinking Together project, working with open-access research-based resources.
Go to the oral skills resource page (University of Cambridge)
The researchers working on the Oral Mastery project also work on the project Talkwall Innovation. In this project, they developed and tried out the digital collaboration tool Talkwall with teachers. Talkwall is designed for teachers to enhance student participation in class conversations.