Façon de Parler
‘Tain’t What You Say (It’s The Way That Cha Say It)
Yesterday I attended a training day on matters to do with Oracy which, as can be seen above, is a word in my job title but not a subject that we have discussed very much in this column. Let me address that imbalance a little today, in the few paltry words which follow.
I don’t know about you, but people down my ends are continually arguing over the definition of Oracy. Today, let’s define it as ‘the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language.’ I’m sure that we can all agree that the ability to communicate is a fundamental life skill, affecting as it does, social mobility, academic standards, well-being, self-esteem, confidence, employability and lots more besides. For students, Oracy is key to successfully participating in lessons and accessing the curriculum in a meaningful way.
Picture, if you will, the scene on my training day yesterday. Your humble Director finds himself surrounded by a veritable Faculty of Maths teachers. This of course would be intimidating at the best of times but when the Hungarian Five and Tens Frames came out and talk on my table turned to conceptual and perceptual subitising at an early age, well I do declare that the Director was floundering to hold his own. And then, as if to add to my shrinking sense of self, we were presented with the following problem which I repeat for you verbatim (the Director’s powers of recall are heightened by anxiety).
Sam has five times as many apples as Jay. Sam gives Jay 26 of his apples. Sam and Jay now have the same number of apples. How many apples are there in total?
Everyone in the room was able to proffer the correct answer after approximately five seconds of thought. Five seconds in which your Director was attempting to contextualise the problem by visualising the exact nature of Sam and Jay’s relationship, prior to then cautiously heading off into an imaginary orchard and counting them there apples.
As the correct answers were nonchalantly shouted out, I was tempted to sink into my chair, catch nobody’s eye and wait for the room to move on to matters I felt more secure about. However instead I thought better of it and did a little practising of my preaching. I turned to what I hoped was the benign soul next to me and asked how she had come up with the answer. It turns out there was no magical mystery in solving the problem but instead a fairly straightforward method which she kindly explained to me in about fifteen seconds, complete with visuals. Simple as the method turned out to be, the Director was nonetheless amazed with this new understanding of what had seemed to be intractable just moments before. I don’t mind telling you, I spent the next few minutes wondering what my life would have been like had such mathematical trickery as this been explained to me at school. Or perhaps if I had been articulate enough to ask about such things. Who knows, there may be an alternate universe where a Director is currently writing, extolling the virtues of numeracy…
There we have a small example of the potentially beneficial effects of articulating thoughts, clearly. Both mine in the questioning and my kindly next door neighbour in the explaining. Let’s, in a true Kantian way, extrapolate that idea and see where it might take us. Let’s dream of a world where articulacy and oracy are developed in everyone; articuloracy for the masses, if you will.
Clumsy portmanteau’s aside, articulate is an interesting word. If your joints are articulated, that means you can do things with them. A dancer who’s graceful is compelling because they’re articulated. Speech is a form of articulation in that way too because the act of speech is a very complicated motor activity in itself. Oracy means dancing with your tongue.
Being articulate also makes you a competent and therefore in today’s world, dangerous person. And wouldn’t anyone rather be competent and dangerous than vague and practically useless? Or graceful rather than awkward for that matter.
In my experience, students can often devalue the importance of articuloracy because they think it doesn’t really matter. But it does.
“In the beginning was the word.”
If you think about it, much of culture is based on the idea that it is the word itself that extracts order from chaos and possibility. And if you think about it even more, there’s something of a deep truth in that.
So it’s a great thing to be articulate. I’m often amused that the students who denigrate the importance of articulacy will often be the very same people to be found mimicking the latest offerings of their favourite rock and roll pop music stars with great joy and admiration. These are artists who are extraordinarily articulate in their performance and their capacity for spontaneous poetic utterances.
So, whether we know it or not, we all really do want to be articulate. It would be remiss of me if I didn’t therefore share one way we could journey towards that particular destination.
In brief, then, as our time is limited, we should start by paying attention to what we say.
Time for an analogy:
Imagine that you’re trying to walk across a swamp and the swamp is murky but you know there’s a path of stone under the water which twists and moves. Staying on the path is the only way to avoid being devoured by the swamp. Now, as you walk forward you can feel with your next step where the stone might be. When you feel it’s solid you take that step and then you do the same thing with your foot again; you search and you find out what’s solid and you step on that stone. You move forward in that way.
Well, that’s what we should do when we’re using words. We need to pay attention to whatever it is we are saying and make sure it’s taking us where we need to be.
Eventually our words will align with and co- create who and what we are. Much can be faked but not that which is authentic. Take the time to use your words carefully and see what happens if you become articulorate.
Until next time Happy Reading/Becoming Articulorate!
The Director had quite a full post bag in response to last week’s request for readers to send in their own tips and advice. To paraphrase the timeless ‘Vision On’, “I’m sorry that I can’t return any of your entries, but there’s a prize for every one I show…”
A Reader’s Tip #1
If you want to make sure you have removed a stain from an item of clothing, use a permanent marker pen to draw a circle around it before putting it in the washing machine. This makes it easy to check that it has gone.