How Important is the Strand of Oral Communication? It's Not Even Up for Debate

                  The final strand that we focused on in our Language and Literacy class was Oral Communication. The Ontario Curriculum states that within the four strands of the curriculum, the strands are closely interrelated and that the knowledge and skills described in the four strands co-exist. I consider this to really explain the nature behind the strand of oral communication, because the skills within oral communication are fundamental to literacy but also thinking and learning. Through communication with other students, learners can facilitate more understanding about certain topics. Oral Communication is fundamental for students to show their skills in regards to the Achievement Chart, especially when it comes to Knowledge and Understanding, Communication and Application. The Ontario Curriculum Documents also argue that although students often tend to develop oral language skills before they read and write, the development of reading and writing skills is directly connected to how effective students are when it comes to oral communication.

                Just like reading, writing and media literacy, students develop oral communication skills by having teachers who provide them with numerous opportunities to develop their skills. Oral communication is not just about communication between two students, it allows them to facilitate and partake in classroom conversations, perform skits and plays and allows them to realize that what they say and how they say it has just as much influence on the message they are trying to send. One of the best ways to facilitate he creation of good oral communication skills is through in-class debates. Debates allow students to not only work on their oral communication skills, but requires them to gather information and form arguments based on factual evidence which highlights their ability in regards to their reading and writing skills.

Some students using oral communication during a reading exercise. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2gDndbB 

               Although the main ideas behind debates in the classroom appear to have the ability to be a great way to work on oral communication and other language skills in class, they do have their drawbacks. In her blog post entitled “Weaving Debate into the Writing Process”, Ashley Prophet highlights the key issues educators and students have with debates in the classroom. Through quick surveys, she found that teachers who do not consider debates as a positive in the classroom was mostly because they felt students get too rowdy, are often unprepared and they do not know how to incorporate debates into the curriculum.  She combats these notions by “rethinking” classroom debates, and it revolves around much more preparation then is normally done.  She insists that structuring the while activity into 5 separate stages can result in students not only working on their oral communication at the end of it all, but work on their reading and writing skills throughout the process. The first stage is what she calls “Pre-writing” which allows students to organize their side of a debate in a visual way like discussion webs or mind maps. The next two stages, entitled  “drafting” and “revising” incorporate more writing and peer-editing strategies that allow students to formulate their main arguments but also lets them start to think about what the other side will be arguing about. Stage 4 is the actual debate, but it is only done after the last two stages have been cleared by the instructor. The final stage is the “publishing” stage, which incorporates consolidation of the exercise and asks students to create a product at the end that highlights the main findings and results. This process highlights the fact that the overall main aspect of debates is not the debate itself, but how the students are able to use their other skills of language and literacy to formulate their side of the argument.

"Weaving Debate into the Writing Process", By Ashley Prophet

The main purpose of the strand of oral communication is to have students develop the skills and strategies to become effective communicators, but also effective listeners. The strand of oral communication does not stand alone, just like the others, it is best done in conjunction with the other strands. Teachers who focus on oral communication through out their units allow students to ask and answer more complicated questions and are  able to stimulate students engagement in their own learning.