ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to examine the link between children's development as independent learners and their speaking and listening, or oracy, skills. It highlights a crucial aspect of spoken language: the ability to engage in interthinking. The chapter describes a classroom project designed to enhance children's oracy skills through direct teaching and the support of their peers. The talk-focused classroom project described in this chapter has, like the National Curriculum for 2000, an integral Information and Communications Technology (ICT) component. The chapter also describes enabled children to engage in educationally effective discussion face-to-face, a necessary precursor to communicating online. It provides background information about some theories of learning from which the concept arose. The chapter outlines a summary of a project on oracy skills which was successful in helping children to learn how to talk effectively to each other when working in groups.
