Speaking and Listening at Key Stage 2 and Beyond

Section 1.1 - Children need direct guidance and structured practice in speaking and listening.

The National Primary Strategy has recently given a new emphasis to the teaching of Speaking and Listening. At KS3, there is a strong emphasis on enabling children to use language to work together effectively. One reason for both these developments is that recent research has shown the importance of the link between spoken language, learning and cognitive development (e.g. Mercer, Wegerif & Dawes, 1999; Mercer, Dawes, Wegerif & Sams, 2004 – see below). Through using language and hearing how others use it, children become able to describe the world, make sense of life's experiences and get things done. They learn to use language as a tool for thinking, collectively and alone. However, children will not learn how to make the best use of language as a tool for communicating and thinking without guidance from their teachers. School may provide the only opportunity many children have for acquiring some extremely important speaking, listening and thinking skills.

For the research findings which underpin these claims, see:

While they will know that children need instruction in literacy and numeracy, student teachers may not realise that spoken language skills can, and should, be directly taught to children. Despite references to the development of children's language skills, National Curriculum guidance does not make it clear that such direct teaching may often be required. There seems to be an implicit belief that the subtle skills of active listening and reasoned speaking will develop simply through children's involvement in whole class and small group dialogues. To some degree, the children will develop their language use through practice. But all children can benefit from exposure to good models for speaking and listening. They also gain from guidance about how to communicate effectively and from taking part in structured activities for practising communicating (including, crucially, group interactions with light supervision from a teacher). It is therefore very important that student teachers become aware of this and learn how to guide children's spoken language development. This will include learning how to: