Research School Network: Accountable Talk – reflecting on our clip from the classroom example In this blog, Deputy Director Jody Chan explores how she has been using the EEF’s guidance on accountable talk in the classroom
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Accountable Talk – reflecting on our clip from the classroom example
In this blog, Deputy Director Jody Chan explores how she has been using the EEF’s guidance on accountable talk in the classroom
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by Durrington Research School
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Oracy has been in the spotlight for a while now, and for good reason. Evidence from the EEF shows that, when used correctly, oral language interventions can have a positive impact across all phases of education, ranging from +7 months in the early years, +6 months in primary and +5 months in secondary. The Commission on the Future of Oracy in Education in England believes that oracy should become the fourth ‘R’ of education, of equal importance to reading, writing and arithmetic.
Research from the EEF and the Communication Trust shows that oral language approaches, whilst beneficial for all, can have the largest impact on our disadvantaged students. By the age of five, these students can be as much as 19 months behind their peers in language development. Without intervention, this gap continues to widen throughout their education. There is a body of research showing the link between oral language and its impact on students’ educational outcomes, wellbeing and life chances. When used correctly, ‘talk’ can improve students’ learning, their reading and writing, and their ability to reason with one another.
In this blog, I discuss Accountable Talk, one approach that can be used to develop students’ spoken language and communication. Accountable Talk is discussed in detail in the EEF’s Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools; it is based on the model developed by Lauren Resnick et al. The model provides a useful structure for setting up high-quality discussions in the classroom.
The framework highlights the importance of accountability to:
a) Knowledge — for example, by seeking to be accurate and truthful. b) Reasoning — for example, by providing justifications for claims. c) Community — for example, by listening to and showing respect for others.
As part of the EEF’s Clips from the Classroom series, I created a video on Accountable Talk. The video shows a Year 7 PE lesson. Please see the link below to watch it:
Firstly, the teacher, Alex, focuses on accountability to knowledge. To do this, she begins by posing a question to the class about the best strategy they can use to beat their opponent in a game of table tennis. Crucially, she gives them time to think and reflect on the question before they start speaking to their peers. Giving them time to think about what they have learnt in previous lessons allows them to draw on their prior knowledge. This helps increase the likelihood that their answers will be accurate and truthful. It also gives them time to formulate their ideas before speaking to their peers.
After this stage, Alex focuses on accountability to community. Here, students explain their ideas to one another. Like any new skill, this is something the teacher has taken time to model and explain, including how students should talk and, importantly, listen to one another. Students already understand that they should face each other when they talk, take turns listening, show that they are listening and demonstrate respect for one another. In the video, they can be seen taking turns to explain their thinking to one another and demonstrating their listening skills by looking at their partner and nodding whilst listening.
Finally, Alex focuses on accountability to reasoning. This is such an important aspect of Accountable Talk because it gives students opportunities to listen to other people’s opinions, consider new ideas and perspectives, and, in this video, decide together which strategy they think is the best for beating their opponent. They can learn to ‘disagree agreeably’, which, as Geoff Barton has stated, is a vital skill for young people to learn. Here, students have the opportunity to challenge each other’s ideas and respectfully disagree with their peers. This is an important aspect of Accountable Talk, as it promotes critical thinking.
It is important that, when the teacher sets up these discussions, even reluctant speakers’ voices are heard. To support this, Alex listens to the different groups’ conversations and scans the room to ensure every voice is being heard, especially those of her disadvantaged students.
Setting up talk by focusing on these three strands not only allows students to talk ‘more’ but also improves the quality of their talk, leading to more thoughtful, collaborative discussions. Students are taught how to share their ideas and opinions and consider another person’s point of view. By participating in Accountable Talk, students can have deeper conversations that allow them to go beyond surface-level thinking.
There are multiple opportunities for Accountable Talk in lessons across every subject that we teach. I hope the video encourages you to try it in your own classrooms. Just remember that, as with any new skill we teach our students, it can take time to embed. To support our students, we need to model it for them, give them opportunities to practise, make our expectations explicit and, importantly, provide them with open-ended questions to discuss. You may find it useful, at least initially, to provide prompt questions to help the conversation flow.
I will leave you with these questions, which I posed at the end of my Clips from the Classroom video:
a) How might you use a framework like Accountable Talk in professional development with staff? b) How might staff be supported to model what effective talk sounds like in their subjects? c) How might talk be scaffolded so that all pupils can participate?
