Research School Network: Implementing an oral language strategy Rosie Booth explores the evidence and implementation of structured classroom talk

Does the Prime Minister hold too much power?

The problem

Questions like this sit at the heart of A Level Politics. To succeed, students need the confidence to hop off the fence. To make an informed and analytical judgement. While my students could analyse both sides of the argument, when it came to making their judgement clear, many struggled. To them, both sides of the debate were equally valid. This was a major problem, as evaluation accounts for almost a third of marks across all three exam papers.

Having worked for Debate Mate prior to teaching, I experienced first-hand the power of equipping students with the tools of articulation. I saw students increase in confidence and verbal communication. With confidence, students as young as 11 could advocate mature and complex arguments within debates, such as this one on the limits of Prime Ministerial power. This made me wonder whether a solution for my students lay in oracy.

“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” – Wittgenstein

The evidence

Quigley (2018) estimates that students need to understand 50,000 words to be successful at school. Yet in 2025, 25% of Year 7s entered secondary school below the expected standard for reading, and 28% below expected standard for writing (DfE). Quigley argues that building ​‘word consciousness’ may significantly increase academic prospects.

Pooling 188 studies, EEF research suggests that oral language interventions may close this gap. This research suggests that oral language interventions could yield six months’ additional progress, on average. This could potentially be the counter to Quigley’s observation that ​“the word poor have become poorer, and the word rich, richer”.

However, ​‘oral language intervention’ is a large umbrella term. The correct intervention for a setting should match the problem at hand and, according to the EEF, ​‘The evidence is strongest on interventions that are integrated with the existing curriculum.’ Robin Alexander (2020) advocates for increased discussion and debate within the classroom; to build confidence with vocabulary. If students can speak better, they can write better. He suggests the ABCQ structure (Agree, Build, Challenge – we use ​‘counter’, Question).

This structure is flexible but works as follows. Teachers explicitly teach content and vocabulary. Students are given opportunity to actively use this through talk. Sentence structures and classroom routines facilitate this through students agreeing, building, challenging and questioning.

Lines of Judgement

Implementing this in my setting

Debate and discussion find a natural place in Politics’ classroom routines. Lessons are framed around an enquiry which students should be able to answer at the end of the lesson. Explicitly taught content builds students towards this but confident articulation leads to a clear evaluation.

My students lacked confidence here. This was shown in our results which fluctuated between ALPs 5 – 7. LPA and MPA students struggled to make any evaluation and HPA students struggled to develop nuanced judgement. Although discussion within lessons was commonplace, it lacked formal structure. Therefore, discussion was not consistently applied within writing.

EEF research suggested short and frequent intervals over a sustained period was most appropriate. Discussion should not be a summary lesson but a regular classroom routine. To best apply Alexander’s ABCQ structure, I implemented ​‘lines of judgement’ as a frequent routine at an interval of twice a week for 8 weeks.

My Theory of Change

As students needed to build their evaluative skills, the ABCQ structure was scaffolded with use of post-it notes and sentence structures. The aim here was to gradually remove these as the routine became familiar. Students utilised think-pair-share to evaluate a statement on the board. ABCQ was then employed through further rounds of post-it notes. Students firstly agreed and built on a peer’s statement. They then countered and questioned a peer’s statement. This was used as a scaffold for students to discuss and debate with their partner leading to stronger and nuanced discussion.

With repeated exposure to this routine, scaffolding was reduced. Rather than use post-its as a framework, students were able to physically stand along the line of judgement and verbally articulate the ABCQ structure. Students would use this routine prior to writing a conclusion, to equip them in getting off that fence. The routine took around 2 months to establish but became an enjoyable classroom routine.

Lines of judgement

Did it work?

Students were initially hesitant to discuss in a more structured format. Translating this into more fluent written work also took time. Through reflecting on delivery of instructions and scaffolding, students gained clarity and confidence. Prompt words and phrases from the routine were increasingly used within their written work. Their conclusions became more sharp and focused with words such as ​‘moreover’, ​‘ultimately’, and the phrase ​‘the stronger argument is’. Furthermore, students increasingly gave judgement verbally in lessons without prompting. Subsequently, marks for evaluation increased, as did ALPs scores.

Like many schools, oracy was a whole-school focus and the ABCQ structure fit perfectly. Over several years, I increased opportunities for discussion and debate into the tutor time curriculum. Y7-Y10 have 3 – 4 extended sessions of debate skills each year. Y10-Y13 have discussion skills twice a fortnight. Upscaling whole-school ensured this was a universal offer. The ABCQ structure is flexible in its delivery, so when upscaling, staff had the option of lines of judgement, alongside other delivery methods.

Staff voice highlighted wanting a more structured approach to better fit form time schedules. Here it became more feasible to change the format to a ​‘ping-pong’ style approach using the prompt ​“I couldn’t disagree more”. Nonetheless, student voice showed students felt increasingly confident when public speaking. This built on positive OFSTED feedback that the school ​“has strategies which enable pupils to discuss and debate through thought-provoking discussions”, showing a strong provision of ​‘oracy’.

It’s hard to link form time interventions directly to attainment and progress. However, students have since gone on to have success in external speaking competitions and the school received positive feedback from mock interviews.

What did I learn?

Ultimately, oral language interventions are only strong when delivered well. At various points, I had to pause, and reflect, and redevelop my resources. I particularly focused on my instructions. I found that videos of myself or other students modelling effective speaking worked well for this. This was particularly useful when upscaling. Not all staff felt confident delivering discussion and debate. This led to inconsistent buy in. Yet videos, scaffolds and staff meetings/​CPD ​‘top tips’ increased confidence.

At some points, encouraging students to speak felt like an uphill battle. It was a slow process. Building students from non-verbal written debates to structured speaking frames, to removing these scaffolds helped with this but some students never felt able to speak in front of the class.

Nevertheless, a culture of discussion developed, outside of formal points. Students were more likely to ask me questions to develop their understanding, or during circulation I heard students debating their judgements during reading tasks. Students were using key terms like ​‘political sovereignty’ with ease and using this to unlock further analysis.

One intervention will never fully close the vocabulary gap. Interventions are never perfect but I will adapt and develop to further embed this. However, I am hopeful I have added vocabulary to those 50,000+ words needed for success.

Note: This work was carried out whilst working at Ilkley Grammar School. It contributed to and complemented their extensive ​‘oracy’ provision and CPD as part of a whole-school focus.

Alexander, R., 2020. A Dialogic Teaching Companion. Abingdon: Routledge.
Education Endowment Foundation (2025) Oral language interventions. Teaching and Learning Toolkit.
Quigley, A., 2018. Closing the Vocabulary Gap. Abingdon: Routledge.