Spoken skills as empowerment
Learning standard language can open doors without erasing identity. Find out how supportive teaching helped one trainee embrace standard English as an added skill, not a replacement for his dialect.
Last updated 8 September 2026
Ferst, P. (1999). Orienting oracy: Empowerment or enslavement. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 23(2), 257-267. doi: 10.1080/0309877990230209
Background
The writer worked with a British primary school trainee teacher who had failed his first teaching practice because the host school complained about the standard of his spoken language. He spoke a local dialect of English (with particular grammatical forms and pronunciation) as did the pupils in the school.
Aims
The writer examines attitudes towards standard and non-standard forms of language (in this case English).
Sample
The article is based on the work that the writer did with one individual teacher trainee. She collected data from a questionnaire used in the exploratory interview, notes taken during seven meetings, a videotape of the trainee carrying out two ‘reading aloud’ simulations, a tape-recording of a retrospective interview evaluating the oracy programme, and a transcription of this recording.
Method
The writer worked with the trainee teacher on a one-to-one basis discussing his views and problems and together they put a programme together. She even got him to work with a language class for foreign learners for one lesson to illustrate the need for an ‘international’ standard language. She also suggested he voluntarily follow up with his college tutor for his evaluation of progress at the end of the oracy programme.
Findings
The trainee teacher’s ego was somewhat bruised by the school’s evaluation. He saw his language as being very much part of his identity and felt uncomfortable adopting the alien standard language features. However, with the caring support of the writer, he began to see that the standard forms were an extension to his linguistic skills that he could then use in appropriate contexts (such as on formal occasions) while at the same time retaining his own dialect.
Implications
The writer feels it is important that teachers help students learn the standard language as it has prestige status and its use can open up doors to employment and other opportunities. However, language is very much tied up with identity and thus asking teachers to use standard language can meet strong resistance. Thus the issue needs to be handled with understanding. It is important to emphasize that the standard forms are an additional resource and not a substitute for what they already have.
Original article retrieved from EBSCOHost.