🔔 📣 Upcoming event: 'The reading wars' – how should children be taught to read? Join Dominic Wyse and Charlotte Hacking on 30 May as they discuss a new theory of teaching reading and writing with examples of groundbreaking new practice for teachers.

ucl.ac.uk/events/events/…

I have an article in this issue on Shakespeare and examining at A Level. Looking forward to reading the other pieces.

Recap: everyone, it seems, is talking about oracy. The latest Commission Conversation …

On oracy, and the spurious, unhelpful dichotomies still circulating, this from me in a blog in 2021: 'Dialogic learning and instruction are not in opposition to each other, nor do teachers have to choose between them.' & another in 2017 (extract below).

Another blog from the archive by me on dialogic learning - a key part of oracy.

The 'oracy is a fad' assertions fill me w/ despair. Aside from ancient Greeks, PhD vivas & the IB, MFL subjects devote 25% of their assessment structures to this yet Eng lang no longer does, despite the full range of lang skills underpinning the whole curric (delivery & learning)

I love this thread Richard Spencer. It expresses so well many of the most important aspects of oracy & this first tweet is something I think is too often missed in discussions about it - it's a vitally important window into students' thinking, understanding & progress.

Want to see a baby make 60 million neural connections? 🧠

Look no further than this fantastic video.

As they bide a little time in the car, our hero and his dad engage in this lovely “serve and return” interaction.

And it’s hard to tell which of them is loving it more.

If…

Re-tweeting this, in case you've not seen it English Association University English or Jennifer Richards Professor Katy Shaw Robert Eaglestone

Dr Helen Kingstone - also on 🟦 David Amigoni @[email protected] The University English #EnglishCreates campaign is trying to raise awareness amongst 6th formers, their teachers and supporters, and the public. See universityenglish.ac.uk/englishcreates/ for more details. Campaign week with lots of events coming soon - 3-7 June

I'm posting this, on oracy, from 2019 - the English & Media Ctr response to the House of Commons APPG enquiry into oracy. It may be helpful to those looking for more information about what it is & key issues involved. englishandmedia.co.uk/blog/oracy-sub…

Two of many special moments from the launch party for #ReadingLessons . Friends from my first school, inc the head of English who appointed me and the NQTs who I mentored in 2001-2. And me with my own former English teacher, without whom none of this would happened.

Lots of events in the pipeline, several with our colleagues English Association including Carol Atherton and Robert Eaglestone talking about Carol's important new book 'Reading Lessons'

This, on oracy, which for me is both learning to talk AND talk for learning - across the curriculum. They overlap but are also different. Doing another CPD session on this at English & Media Ctr soon. Blogs on the site on our ‘it’s Good to Talk’ research project explore this too.

A country has a world-class creative arts industry. Its writers, poets, dramatists, screenwriters are respected across the globe. It has an urgent need for English teachers in schools. It wilfully destroys its university provision in these areas. Madness!
theguardian.com/education/2024…

Very grim!

This is precisely what Dominic Wyse and I explore in our forthcoming book, The Balancing Act, publishing in June with Routledge Books, which features a new model for literacy, based on the interconnected nature of language, reading and writing: routledge.com/The-Balancing-…