Oral Communication, like other skill areas in the ACSF, is based on the view that language is a social everyday event, which is shaped by purpose and context. In the ACSF, Oral Communication has been divided into two areas -speaking and listening.

Oral Communication involves both transactional and interpersonal exchanges. Transactional exchanges are primarily practical in purpose, designed to achieve a specific outcome such as providing or obtaining information, goods and services. Exchanges tend to be more formulaic and structured and may often involve situations where speakers have no prior knowledge of each other.

Interpersonal exchanges involve an engagement of the speakers with each other for the purposes of establishing, building and maintaining a relationship, problem solving, exploring issues, dealing with conflict and sharing/expressing emotions. The speakers may not have had previous contact and the relationship may or may not be ongoing.

Exchanges may be formal or informal and will be influenced by factors such as the context of the exchange, cultural understandings, power relations, social distance and emotional/attitudinal factors. They will also be influenced by the medium of the exchange; that is, not all oral events occur face to face. As technology improves, there is an ever increasing number of avenues by which oral communication takes place such as online interactive telecommunication. Listening activities may not involve interaction with another person but the listener interacts purely with other mediums such as listening to music, movies, radio, etc.

The core skill of Oral Communication recognises the following:

• that there are a range of ways to interact and that these are determined by audience, context and purpose. Where there are more than two speakers participating in the one conversation, participating effectively becomes more complex and requires each person to draw on an increasing range of communicative strategies. Understanding what strategies to use as both speaker and listener will be determined partly by the medium used for the exchange and partly by accepted patterns or rules that govern the particular form of interaction
• use of register, i.e. various styles of language available for speaking. Choosing the appropriate style depends on the context, purpose, participants, subject matter and channel of communication

Oral Communication across the five levels reflects:

• fluency and sustained interaction
• use of generic structures (vocabulary, grammatical forms and relationships between utterances as they occur in specific types of spoken and other aural texts)
• use of appropriate paralinguistics (non-verbal communication) to support the communicative process
• aural information processing demands (reflective response to aural spoken texts, which may be spoken or, for example, music).

Oral Communication Indicators

An adult's oral communication performance is described against two Performance Indicators.

• The first Oral Communication Indicator primarily addresses speaking.
• The second Oral Communication Indicator primarily addresses listening.

Specific Indicator statements describe exit performance at each level.

The following summarises the Oral Communication Indicators for Levels 1 to 5; more detail on the Indicators, Domains of Communication and Sample Activities for Oral Communication can be found in the Australian Core Skills Framework which can be downloaded from this site. More information on Oral Communication at Pre Level 1 can be found in the ACSF Pre Level 1 supplement which can also be downloaded from this site.