#575 Oracy: How to improve your speaking and listening skills

**Sarah** (0:00)
Shame needs the right process, critical needs the right response, wicked needs the right mindset.

**Helen** (0:08)
What we're going to do is talk about the three types of problems from Keith Grint's work, when I talk about what they are, how you can spot them, like what they might sound like if you've got one of these problems, and probably most importantly, what you do to solve them.

**Sarah** (0:21)
You know, when you're trying to think like, well, why would I spend time figuring out what type of problem this is? It's like, well, almost if you haven't figured out what type of problem, you might try and solve it in the wrong way, and you sort of waste time and energy. What is good about all of these different types of problems? I know that this is a really learnable skill, because I learnt the critical problem-solving skill.

**Helen** (0:43)
Problem-solving, for example, is a no-regret skill. It doesn't really matter what is going to happen in the world. Invest in that skill, you're going to have no regrets. Hi, I'm Helen.

**Sarah** (0:57)
And I'm Sarah.

**Helen** (0:58)
And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, a weekly podcast where we borrow some brilliance from something we've been reading, watching, listening to, events we've been at, people we've been talking to, just wherever we take a bit of inspiration from. But the important thing is that we connect that to your career so that you've got some new ideas and actions so you can try out.

**Sarah** (1:17)
And so regular listeners might guess quite quickly that I have chosen today's topic. Next week's is the one that I've chosen.
Well, it'll be a very niche guessing game. Who do you think chose the topic? So today we're borrowing brilliance from a word.

**Helen** (1:34)
Lovely. Can't wait.
I do like it.

**Sarah** (1:37)
I know you do.

**Helen** (1:38)
I really struggle to say this word. I keep feeling like I get it wrong.

**Sarah** (1:41)
So the word is oracy. And if we are pronouncing it wrong, we would like to apologize for that upfront.

**Helen** (1:48)
Well, it was either oracy or or-asy.

**Sarah** (1:50)
Oracy. I thought it might be oracy because it's felt more like oracy, but we're going to say oracy because it is about oral communication.
To be fair, I listened to a podcast with two people who were experts and they did both pronounce it slightly differently. So I feel okay about going with oracy.

**Helen** (2:09)
Okay.

**Sarah** (2:10)
And then we hope for the best. That's basically we're boring brilliants for a word we can't say.
So it is a concept that I came across through a lovely podcast called Word of Mouth, which is on Radio 4 with Michael Rosen. And unbelievably for someone who has never listened to our podcast, my partner recommended it. So I was like, oh great.

**Helen** (2:29)
So he obviously cares that he was like, you might like this. Do you recommend it in the context of the podcast or just as a, you might be interested in this Sarah?

**Sarah** (2:36)
You might be interested in this because he doesn't even know the format for our podcast. So there's no way you can't connect those dots. But what it is, is the skill of speaking and listening well. That is my short, very simple version. And so it's sort of learning through talking, listening and sharing.
And the more sort of official definition, which comes from Voice 21, who are a charity, because a lot of this work, pretty much all of this work actually is in education, is in schools. So they actually have a school, but they also work with schools. They say, oracy is articulating ideas, developing understanding, and engaging with others through speaking, listening and communication.
And as I said, it's mainly used in education, and it's not a skill that you learn separately. It's more about, from my understanding, like how you teach. So initially I was like, Oh, is it like, you have English and maths? Yeah. Were my obvious, I was like, Oh, is this like another subject? But it's not really a subject, it's more of a skill. And the example that really stuck with me, that really helped me to understand this, was the lady from the charity was talking about assemblies. And I don't know about our listeners, but she said most assemblies, like say at like primary school, you all sit in rows, you know, like facing the front and then you listen to the teacher. Is that what your assemblies were like at school?

**Helen** (4:02)
Yeah, in the village hall, not the village hall, the school hall.