Chair of the Commission on the Future of Oracy Education in England, Geoff Barton, talks to Neil Mercer about talk for learning, disciplinary approaches to oracy, how we can support teachers to become effective oracy practitioners and whether we assess students' oracy skills. 

Neil Mercer is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Director of Oracy Cambridge: the Centre for Effective Spoken Communication at Hughes Hall. Before he joined Cambridge, he was Professor of Language and Communications at the Open University. He is a  psychologist whose research has focused on the development of children’s spoken language and reasoning abilities and teachers’ role in that development, he has worked extensively and internationally with teachers, researchers and educational policy makers. Neil grew up in the Lake District and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cumbria.