Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
About the Speaker
Professor Christine Goh is President’s Chair Professor in Education (Linguistics & Language Education) at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University Singapore. She holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Lancaster University and is a teacher educator, language learning researcher and author with a strong interest in language learners’ oracy development and metacognition. Her work is characterised by a strong research/theory – practice nexus. Christine has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters and spoken at numerous international platforms. Her recent book publications are Second Language Oracy Development for Young Learners: Listening, Speaking and Thinking (2026, co-edited with Robbie L. Sabnani and Willy Renandya, Springer Nature), the second edition of Teaching and Learning Second Language Listening: Metacognition in Action (2022, with Larry Vandergrift, Routledge) and Confident Speaking: Theory, Practice and Teacher Inquiry (2024, with Xuelin Liu, Routledge). She is currently working with Anne Burns on a second edition of their popular book, Teaching Speaking: A Holistic Approach (2012, Cambridge University Press).
About the Talk
Beyond Effective Oral Communication: Oracy Development for Academic Participation and Flourishing in Higher Education
Listening and speaking are important language communication skills for university students as they learn to participate in their academic and disciplinary communities. In this talk I examine the teaching of listening and speaking in higher education through the lens of oracy (Wilkins 1965, Barnes 1988, Mercer 2025), where speech is a vehicle for acting in the world, understanding it and influencing it. The skills are a means of sharing ideas, examining thinking and enacting collaboration. The concept of oracy offers a compelling reason for developing language learners’ listening and speaking competence beyond functional purposes to include holistic development, learner identity and personal agency that can lead to individual flourishing. In explaining oracy development, I shall refer to discussions on learners’ interactional competence, metacognitive engagement and listening and speaking performance. I shall also propose some principles for designing and evaluating oracy-focused curriculum innovations. Relevant classroom activities and research directions are also suggested in areas such as dialogic interactions, metacognitive instruction and feedback on oracy.