Conversing with Siri or Google Now

If your students have access to an Apple or Android mobile device equipped with the French language version of the personal assistants Siri or Google Now, then it would be easy to set an enjoyable and useful communicative task. Siri and Google Now will accept some inaccurate pronunciation, up to a point, and if you did this in a classroom setting background noise could be an issue, but I would set pupils a series of questions to ask either personal assistant.

To show the task was done, they could note down the responses they get. Siri and Google Now sometimes gives a straightforward spoken response to a question. Frequently it will refer you to a web source or give you an answer in reading form.

How about these questions for intermediate students? They all practise the use of " quel(le)(s)".

1. Quel temps fait-il à Paris en ce moment?
2. Quel est la capitale du Pakistan?
3. Quelle est la date de naissance de Napoléon Bonaparte?
4. Quelle est la population de la France?
5. Quel est l'animal le plus rapide du monde?
6. Quels sont les restaurants les plus près d'ici?
7. Quels films peut-on voir au cinéma à ...?
8. Quelles langues est-ce qu'on parle en Suisse?
9. Quelle est la température actuelle à ... ?
10. Quelles sont les langues les plus parlées du monde?

Students could be asked to make up, say, five questions of their own.

This could be done as a paired exercise if students are sharing a device.

I wonder how far we are from having a device with which you could have more spontaneous conversations. It may be less rewarding to talk with a device, but some students may actually feel more comfortable doing so. If you have seen the excellent movie Her you will know how personal your relationship with an operating system could one day become.

Comments

What is skill acquisition theory?

For this post, I am drawing on a section from the excellent book by Rod Ellis and Natsuko Shintani called Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research (Routledge, 2014). Skill acquisition is one of several competing theories of how we learn new languages. It’s a theory based on the idea that skilled behaviour in any area can become routinised and even automatic under certain conditions through repeated pairing of stimuli and responses. When put like that, it looks a bit like the behaviourist view of stimulus-response learning which went out of fashion from the late 1950s. Skill acquisition draws on John Anderson’s ACT theory, which he called a cognitivist stimulus-response theory. ACT stands for Adaptive Control of Thought. ACT theory distinguishes declarative knowledge (knowledge of facts and concepts, such as the fact that adjectives agree) from procedural knowledge (knowing how to do things in certain situations, such as understand and speak a language).

The 2026 GCSE subject content is published!

Two DfE documents were published today. The first was the response to the consultation about the proposed new GCSE (originally due in October 2021) and the second is the subject content document which, ultimately, is of most interest to MFL teachers in England. Here is the link to the document. We are talking about an exam to be done from 2026 (current Y7s). There is always a tendency for sceptical teachers to think that consultations are a bit of a sham and that the DfE will just go ahead and do what they want when it comes to exam reform. In this case, the responses to the original proposals were mixed, and most certainly hostile as far as exam boards and professional associations representing the MFL community, universities, head teachers and awarding bodies are concerned. What has emerged does reveal some significant changes which take account of a number of criticisms levelled at the proposals. As I read it, the most important changes relate to vocabulary and the issue of topics

La retraite à 60 ans

Suite à mon post récent sur les acquis sociaux..... L'âge légal de la retraite est une chose. Je voudrais bien savoir à quel âge les gens prennent leur retraite en pratique - l'âge réel de la retraite, si vous voulez. J'ai entendu prétendre qu'il y a peu de différence à cet égard entre la France et le Royaume-Uni. Manifestation à Marseille en 2008 pour le maintien de la retraite à 60 ans © AFP/Michel Gangne Six Français sur dix sont d’accord avec le PS qui défend la retraite à 60 ans (BVA) Cécile Quéguiner Plus de la moitié des Français jugent que le gouvernement a " tort de vouloir aller vite dans la réforme " et estiment que le PS a " raison de défendre l’âge légal de départ en retraite à 60 ans ". Résultat d’un sondage BVA/Absoluce pour Les Échos et France Info , paru ce matin. Une majorité de Français (58%) estiment que la position du Parti socialiste , qui défend le maintien de l’âge légal de départ à la retraite à 60 ans,

Language Teacher Toolkit: Steve Smith's blog

Search This Blog