An oracy framework for England’s schools: linguistic justice edition

Abstract

It is September 2028. All schools in England have just started teaching the new national curriculum. As part of this, they are adhering to guidance contained within a new oracy framework, named as a core recommendation of the 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report. In this article we project into the future to offer a vision and an edition of what an oracy framework can look, feel, and sound like when it is anchored in and attentive to linguistic justice. Building on insights from a raciolinguistic perspective and abolitionist thinking, we argue that oracy frameworks can be either linguistically just or linguistically unjust–there is nothing in between. Our framework, designed through an academic-teacher collaboration, is organised into six components: contesting oracy, the politics of listening, oracy and social justice, anti-racist oracy, anti-ableist oracy, and translanguaging into oracy. We offer a linguistic justice take on oracy which seeks to push the conversation in new directions, whilst also representing a practical tool for schools who are seeking to sustain linguistic diversity and engage in interconnected social justice struggles.