The contribution of clinical phonetics to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom

This paper explains how insights from clinical linguistics can be applied to the investigation of oracy problems in the classroom. While the importance of oracy skills at school and beyond is undisputed, there is often a lack of conveniently manageable frameworks for assessing these skills. It is suggested here that methods from phonetics and phonology can be easily and profitably adopted into routine language profiling in schools and that they offer one means of uncovering potential speech difficulties in children. Two main areas are addressed: speech acquisition and speech production skills. The main focus is on the assessment of oracy in the UK, although the role of assessment in US Curriculum Framework is also considered.