The Speaker, Questioner, Summariser oracy structure for trios helps students develop a range of oracy skills. With regular practice in each role, they will strengthen their speaking, listening, and reasoning.
How it works
Put students into groups of three, and allocate the roles:
Speaker: Shares their responses to the topic or question.
Questioner: Asks the Speaker follow-up and probing questions to encourage them to elaborate. Why? How do you know? What do you mean? Can you clarify that? What else are you thinking?
Summariser: Listens carefully and, at the end, summarises the main points for the group or the whole class. To focus their summary, you can set a word limit (for example, 15 words).
Make sure everyone rotates between the three roles, over time.
Note: If you end up with any groups of four, an additional useful role is ‘Keyworder’. This person listens carefully, noting any key words. The Summariser can refer to this list when they summarise.
The concept of Keywording draws on the work of Roger Sutcliffe et al. in Thinking Moves A-Z.
Get them really listening to, and thinking about, each other’s contributions