Why Opportunities For Talk Are Insufficient To Develop Oracy Skills

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Why "Opportunities for Talk" Are Not Enough

In many schools, the focus is on creating moments for discussion, usually "think–pair–share" activities, group work, and whole-class debates. These can be valuable, but on their own, they are like "opportunities for maths." Without a defined curriculum, clear progression, and teachable skills, they lack the structure that leads to improvement.

Well-meant advice such as "create a culture of talk" or "encourage discussion" often sounds inspiring, but it leaves teachers asking the most critical question: How?

• How do we ensure students are building on prior skills year after year?
• How do we prevent informal chat from replacing disciplined thinking?
• How do we measure whether talk is becoming more effective over time?

Without a structured oracy framework, the answers are unclear — and that means schools leave progression in oracy to chance.

Tongue Fu Talking®: Oracy with Structure, Progression, and Purpose

Tongue Fu Talking® is Chris Quigley's fully resourced, progressive oracy framework designed to ensure every student develops speaking and listening skills deliberately, consistently, and successfully. It is built on two modes of talk:

• Explorer Mode – for co-constructing understanding. Students reason together, test ideas, and explore concepts collaboratively.
• Presenter Mode – for substance and style. Students share knowledge, persuade, inform, or inspire an audience with clarity and confidence.

Four disciplines and 23 teachable practices underpin these modes. This combination means oracy is not left to chance — it is taught, practised, and assessed with the same precision as any other subject.

The Four Disciplines of Tongue Fu Talking®

The four disciplines are the structural pillars of Tongue Fu Talking®, each targeting a different dimension of talk — physical delivery, linguistic precision, cognitive organisation, and social connection — so that speaking and listening develop in a balanced and deliberate way.

1. The Stance
   Focus: Physical presence and delivery — posture, gestures, facial expressions, and voice projection.
   White Belt example: A KS1 pupil learns to face the person they are speaking to and use a clear, steady voice.
   Black Belt example: A KS3 pupil uses posture, controlled gestures, and deliberate pauses to guide the audience through a multi-part argument.
2. The Flow
   Focus: Language choices and clarity — vocabulary, register, grammar, and sentence structure.
   White Belt example: A KS1 pupil swaps "big" for "enormous" when describing a story character.
   Black Belt example: A KS3 pupil integrates subject-specific terminology and adapts register seamlessly when moving from peer conversation to a formal audience.
3. The Mind
   Focus: Thinking processes and structuring ideas — reasoning, summarising, and staying on purpose.
   White Belt example: A KS1 pupil gives a simple opinion with "because" to link two ideas.
   Black Belt example: A KS3 pupil weighs multiple perspectives, introduces caveats, and sequences arguments to reach a nuanced conclusion.
4. The Bond
   Focus: Social and emotional connection — listening actively, managing interactions, and engaging others.
   White Belt example: A KS1 pupil waits for a peer to finish before speaking.
   Black Belt example: A KS3 pupil steers a heated discussion back to focus while acknowledging others' contributions.

The 23 Teachable Practices: Tongue Fu Talking® focuses on Teachable Skills

The 23 teachable practices are the heart of the framework. They break oracy into clear, learnable skills so that teachers can teach them explicitly and students can practise them deliberately. Each practice is progressive — the White Belt version is very different from the Black Belt version.

The Stance
1. Pacing
2. Tone
3. Pronunciation
4. Projection
5. Gestures and Posture
6. Eyes and Face

The Flow
7. Vocabulary
8. Register
9. Grammatical Awareness
10. Sentence Structure
11. Rhetorical Flair

The Mind
12. Content and Purpose
13. Metacognition
14. Reasoning with Justification
15. Summarising
16. Structure
17. Focus

The Bond
18. Managing Interactions
19. Turn-taking and Active Listening
20. Audience Awareness
21. Self-assuredness and Resilience
22. Liveliness and Engagement
23. Engagement and Collaboration

Each of these will be explored in its upcoming blogs

What Progression Looks Like from White Belt to Black Belt

Progression in Tongue Fu Talking® is deliberate, not incidental.

White Belt: Foundations — simple, concrete skills such as speaking in full sentences, making eye contact, and giving a single reason for an idea.
Green Belt: Expansion — growing vocabulary, using conjunctions for contrast, and managing short turns in discussion.
Brown Belt: Refinement — sustaining structured arguments, adapting register, and integrating evidence smoothly.
Black Belt: Mastery — using rhetorical devices, structuring for maximum impact, and handling complex audience dynamics.

In the same way that PE lessons build from basic movement to advanced skills, or mathematics progresses from counting to algebra, oracy moves step-by-step towards mastery.

Explorer Mode and Presenter Mode in Action

In Explorer Mode, students use talk to test ideas, co-construct meaning, and think aloud together. In Presenter Mode, they deliver fully formed ideas with clarity and impact. Without both, oracy is incomplete. Some students may excel at informal peer talk but struggle to present formally. Others may give confident presentations but falter in collaborative discussion. Tongue Fu Talking® develops both modes side by side, ensuring balance and versatility.

Example – Geography Lesson
Explorer Mode: Students discuss possible causes of coastal erosion, listening to each other's evidence before forming a shared hypothesis.
Presenter Mode: A student presents the group's conclusion to the class, using formal register and supporting visuals.

Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Oracy Teaching

Even in schools that value talk, these mistakes are common:

• Confusing activity with learning: Talk happens, but skills do not improve because there is no clear teaching.
• One-size-fits-all tasks: Expecting the same talk outcomes from all ages and stages, without progression.
• No assessment: Without defined skills, there is no way to measure improvement.
• Vague goals: Displaying "discussion rules" without teaching how to meet them.

Tongue Fu Talking® addresses all of these by defining the skills, mapping progression, and resourcing talk strategies so improvement is inevitable.

Embedding Tongue Fu Talking® Across the Curriculum

The framework works across all subjects:

• Science: Explorer Mode for planning experiments, Presenter Mode for reporting results.
• History: Debating causes of events, using formal register and evidence.
• PE: Giving peer feedback on performance with precision and encouragement.
• Art: Explaining creative choices using subject-specific vocabulary.

By teaching the same practices in multiple contexts, students learn to transfer skills — a hallmark of mastery.

Why Rigour, Progression, and Resourcing Matter

For talk to be a true learning tool, it must be:

• Rigorous: Skills are precisely defined and assessed.
• Progressive: Expectations grow from White Belt to Black Belt.
• Resourced: Teachers have ready-to-use materials that reduce workload.

This is what transforms talk from an incidental classroom feature into a core element of learning.

Next Steps

If your current approach to oracy is based on "opportunities to talk" and a general encouragement to "create a culture of talk," it is time to go further. With Tongue Fu Talking®, you have:

• A clear set of 23 teachable practices
• A belt progression from White to Black Belt
• Two distinct modes of talk — Explorer and Presenter
• A fully resourced, whole-school framework

Over the coming weeks, we shall post about each of the 23 practices.  To find out more in the mean time:

 Read: Complete Guide to Teaching Oracy from EYFS to KS3

Read: Why Oracy Matters

Read: Oracy is not a Subject, but Every Subject Requires it

Read: Curriculum-Based Debates: A Powerful Classroom Talk Strategy

Read: Top 10 Classroom Talk Strategies to Develop Oracy Skills with Tongue Fu Talking®

References

Education Endowment Foundation (2021) Oral Language Interventions. London: EEF. Available at: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/education-evidence/teaching-learning-toolkit/oral-language-interventions
Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. and Major, L. (2019) The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. Abingdon: Routledge.
Alexander, R. (2020) A Dialogic Teaching Companion. London: Routledge.

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