Oracy and education: perspective shifts and policy tensions (Editorial)

Since 2003, it would appear that the notion of oracy has become palatable to policy advisors to the point where an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) was convened in the UK to review the role and importance of oracy for classroom learning. The 2021 UKLA International Conference’s focus on spoken language in literacy learning and teaching provided the impetus for this special issue on oracy. This collection of papers answers the call for research from different perspectives on human communication and embraces the embodied, multilingual and culturally diverse nature of oracy and the implications of those perspectives for policy and practice.