S.P.E.A.K.

• 1

  EAL Foundations

  What our children need before oracy instruction can land. Listening comprehension, phonological awareness, formulaic chunks, academic language (CALP), translanguaging — 8 sub-skills, taught across 5 stages from immersion to autonomous transfer.

• 2

  Learning to Speak

  How to speak well. Voice 21’s Oracy Framework — 14 sub-skills across Physical, Linguistic, Cognitive, and Social-Emotional strands — adapted explicitly for EAL learners. Modeled → Drilled → Guided → Collaborative → Applied.

• 3

  Speaking to Communicate

  Why and where to speak. Three Voices — Thinking, Personal, Public — carry six authentic purposes across five speaking modes. The Voices of Cosmos student-voice routines (Voice Circles, Forums, Co-Design Teams) are where this lands for real — children practise oracy in conversations that genuinely shape the school.

• 🧠

  Thinking Voice

  The talk that drives cognitive growth — half-formed and tentative on purpose.

  ⚡

  Explore

  Hypothesise, wonder, reason aloud.

  🔍

  Inquire

  Ask, probe, investigate.

• 🪞

  Personal Voice

  The talk that makes a community — identity, relationships, belonging.

  💬

  Share

  Present knowledge and experiences.

  🤝

  Connect

  Greet, encourage, support.

• 📢

  Public Voice

  The talk that moves people — beyond the classroom, into the world. Practised at scale through the Cosmos Orators Club, House Forums, and Student Council, where what children say genuinely shapes what the school does.

  🎯

  Influence

  Persuade, advocate, debate.

  🎭

  Entertain

  Perform, recite, captivate.

• P

  Physical

  How a child’s body and voice show up in talk. The volume of an EY3 reading aloud at the morning meeting; the steady pace of a Grade 4 hot-seating a character from a story; the eye contact a Grade 6 makes when presenting a project to parents. We teach English stress and intonation explicitly, because they differ from the rhythms of Telugu.

• L

  Linguistic

  The words children pull from when they want to say what they mean. From the precise verb a Grade 2 picks to describe a tadpole, to the connectives — “however”, “consequently”, “as a result” — a Grade 6 reaches for in a debate. Word Wizards builds vocabulary in concentric rings (concrete, then academic, then figurative); Morphology Mavericks teaches how words are built from roots and affixes; Colourful Semantics gives every child a way to construct full sentences before they have to write them.

• C

  Cognitive

  The thinking that talk reveals. A Grade 3 summarising what their group decided. A Grade 5 reasoning out loud about why two characters in a story disagree. The half-formed, exploratory talk that lets a child grow an idea before it has to be neat. Sentence stems and discourse markers give every child a way in.

• S

  Social-Emotional

  The relational side of talk. A Grade 1 child taking a turn instead of interrupting. A Grade 4 child disagreeing politely. A Grade 6 child reading the room before launching into a story. Cultural norms around eye contact, turn-taking, and challenging an idea are taught — not assumed — because they differ across our home languages.

• 1

  Modeled

  Teacher demonstrates with think-alouds. Children observe and analyse expert examples.

• 2

  Drilled

  Repeated practice of specific features — choral repetition, pronunciation, phrase practice. Especially important for EAL phonology.

• 3

  Guided

  Scaffolded practice with teacher coaching. Fishbowl discussions, supported presentations.

• 4

  Collaborative

  Peer practice using structured protocols — talk partners, group discussion, collaborative tasks.

• 5

  Applied

  Independent use in authentic, meaningful contexts — real presentations, real debates, real conversations.

Naming convention: [Voice]: [Role] — [Playful Extension]. Children grow up with the same Role from EY1 to Grade 6 — Wonder Wanderers become Idea Adventurers become Hypothesis Hunters — so they feel the arc of their own progression in the words they hear.