Speak out: The importance of oracy in university business education

Gerald Dampier CMBE, Senior Lecturer in Learning Development, Surrey Business School shares the strategies he has developed for successfully developing oracy skills in the foundation year that prepare students for presentation assignments at first year and beyond. 

The recent Oracy Education Commission Report highlighted the current Government’s commitment to raising attention to oracy in Early Years education and the National Curriculum.  The report acknowledges the extent to which oracy can contribute at these levels to improved well-being, belonging, and confidence, to young people’s preparedness for interviews and employment, civic education, and much more. 

The report also notes the degree to which employers value spoken communication skills, but currently identify a significant skills gap in this area, both among school leavers and graduates. In other words, there is a need for greater attention to the development of oracy in university business schools. 

In my work as a Learning Developer, responsible for embedding skills development within the Business, Management and Economics Foundation Year curriculum, I have consistently pushed for the inclusion of practical initiatives to enhance students’ oral communication, and work with subject specialist colleagues who have integrated oral skills and assessment in their curriculum design.  In combination, we seek to address the needs of students who regularly highlight their own lack of confidence in public speaking when joining the Foundation Year.  

Oracy skills: For more than just public speaking and presentations 

Oracy is much more than ‘public speaking’ or ‘oral presentation’ skills: importantly, it includes the ability to interact with others using emotionally intelligent strategies for listening, turn-taking and steering a conversation.  While we have not ignored these interactive skills in our curriculum, the pressure to develop the oral skills to succeed in individual (vlog) and group (face-to-face) summative presentation assessments, has meant that the bulk of the oracy development work stresses ‘public speaking’ skills. 

Ex-Foundation Year students regularly feedback on how well-prepared they feel for presentation assignments at first year and beyond: 

“Being able to develop oracy skills in my Foundation year has helped to build my confidence when progressing in my degree, especially when it comes to presenting in group or projects.”
Shreya Patel, current 2nd Year Business Management student.  

Inclusive oral assessment involves much more than giving students a task based around content from the curriculum and expecting them to deliver an impactful presentation. The Oracy Skills Framework* is an excellent starting point for lecturers looking for ways to embed these skills in their curricula at tertiary level, despite having been designed for use at compulsory school level.  This framework is organised around the physical, linguistic, cognitive, and social and emotional dimensions to successful oral communication. 

Furthermore, the increasing reliance placed by employers on video CVs, recorded answers to interview questions, and online interviews, has led us to bolster the employability elements of the curriculum with development of essential audio-visual skills, which will enable students to showcase their knowledge and abilities to best effect.  Again, student feedback confirms the value of this kind of developmental work: 

“[Oracy work] enabled us to build confidence working in unfamiliar settings… Without gaining this confidence early on, I wouldn’t imagine myself [securing] the internships I’ve applied for.”
Matt Davies, currently final year Business Management with HRM student. 

“[Oracy work] has also proved useful in my interview stages when applying for jobs and placements, so I am grateful to have had the support in my Foundation year which set me up for these opportunities”
Shreya Patel, current 2nd year Business Management student. 

Strategies for developing students’ oracy skills 

Particular strategies aimed at developing students’ oracy skills within the curriculum include: 

• A workshop based around skills both for speaking directly to camera, and for recording interviews, capturing picture and sound, and essential editing.  Formative tasks with feedback prepare students for:  
  > a summatively assessed 5-minute vlog 
  > a 20-minute summative group presentation, which includes a 5-minute edited recording of an interview with a business leader.
   

• A group presentation skills workshop, featuring analysis of sample presentations shown on video. Students discuss a range of rhetorical and genre features of each, e.g. structure, signposting, timing, supporting evidence, slides, referencing; presenters’ body language, intonation, pace, register, and projection. 
  The session finishes with every student being involved in group micro-presentations on a business topic, with ‘instant’ group feedback provided by other students, and further feedback on an individual basis from the two lecturers present. 

Providing a relevant, connected, and inclusive business curriculum means ensuring that such oracy skills needs are addressed within the subject discipline and revisited at all levels of business education. 

References: 

Oracy Skills Framework, Voice 21 & University of Cambridge 2018