Julie Dockrell talks to us about how oral language is the foundation for all other learning and what the implications of this are for teachers.

Julie talks about how her research aims to help children develop a flexible use of language across different contexts, for instance through a programme that supports children's conversational skills.

She explores the importance of developing children's inference skills and oral comprehension by encouraging children to talk about and understand the texts they're reading.

Julie also discusses the different types of multilingual classrooms and how teachers can address the challenges of teaching when there are many different languages in a classroom – though she also emphasises the importance of acknowledging the diversity of languages and translanguaging in particular.

Full show notes, links and transcript: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/news/2025/feb/if-we-dont-create-opportunities-talk-we-build-disadvantage-staffroom-s05e02