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Oracy

The Transformative Power of Finding Your Voice

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Literacy. Numeracy. Oracy?

For generations our education system has been built on the twin pillars of literacy and numeracy. But what if a third – and equally vital – pillar has been ignored? Enter oracy: communicating effectively, articulating ideas and engaging with others through spoken language.

In this persuasive and powerful manifesto, Neil Mercer calls for oracy, as a subject and a set of skills, to have equal footing alongside literacy and numeracy. Oracy can and must be taught, so that students leave school not only as readers and writers, but as accomplished speakers and listeners. Mercer incisively shows how oracy education has nothing to do with speaking ‘proper’, or eliminating style, slang and regional accents, but instead about empowering people to find and express their own voice. In fact, oracy is a key driver of cognitive development, academic attainment and social mobility – helping every young person to achieve their potential and challenge the inequalities of language and power.

Oracy: The Transformative Power of Finding Your Voice is the first book to bring this important step change in educational and social thinking to a wider audience. But it is also practical: a guide to how to use talk to teach critical thinking and find creative solutions to life’s burning issues. After all, the impact of oracy doesn’t stop at the school gates: we all need oracy skills for our personal relationships, professional networks and social lives.

'Brilliant and inspiring' Alastair Campbell 'Fantastic' Jeffrey Boakye
'Tremendous, necessary and enlightening' Michael Rosen
'Parents, politicians, teachers, students – you should all read this brilliant book' Anthony Seldon

© Neil Mercer 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

 Career Success Communication & Social Skills Linguistics Personal Development Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Public Speaking Social Psychology & Interactions Social Sciences

Critic reviews

A tremendous, necessary and enlightening book that takes us into how talk ticks, and why we need to nurture it. Neil Mercer shows us in fine detail how better talkers are better learners (Michael Rosen)
As someone who has in-depth conversations for a living, even I found much to inspire and inform in this manifesto for oracy as a vital tool for how we learn, listen, communicate and evolve (Nihal Arthanayake)
Brilliant and inspiring (Alastair Campbell)
This book is as overdue as it is informed. Wide-ranging and insightful, Professor Mercer draws on everything: the history of language, the inherent cultural depth in accent and dialect, the craft of collaboration, the life-changing impact of owning your voice from early years to university and beyond. In doing so, he debunks the long-held myth of traditional education and demonstrates – through examples and clear frameworks – how oracy, when taught well, is as educationally beneficial as it is personally liberating. One core skill within oracy is the ability to listen – the Department of Education would be well advised to listen to Neil Mercer. (Rufus Norris)
Fantastic. In our increasingly fractured world, this timely, engaging and vital book shows us how to develop a meaningful culture of oracy (Jeffrey Boakye)
Parents, politicians, teachers, students – you should all read this brilliant and immensely fun book. You'll never be quite the same again (Anthony Seldon)
Simply, concisely and with inescapable logic, Neil Mercer makes the vital case for a radical recentering of oracy at the heart of a deep, thoughtful and intellectually rigorous curriculum (Sammy Wright)
Oracy is the most creative and constructive innovation in educational practice of the past half century. Neil Mercer brilliantly shows why it should now be compulsory (Simon Jenkins)
Neil Mercer writes with wisdom, insight and humour, leaving us in no doubt about the power of talk to transform our lives and relationships. This is an essential book for parents, grandparents, teachers and anyone who works with children (Alison Peacock)
This is a superb, lucid introduction to the concept of oracy. It powerfully explains why it’s a game-changer for young people’s learning, essential to the craft of great teachers, and vital to our democracy by helping future citizens to debate, argue, and listen actively & critically. Recommended. (Geoff Barton)
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