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Breaking the Sound Barrier

Here are the slides I used for my presentation to the ISMLA French day at Queen's College, London. ISMLA stands for Independent Schools Modern Languages Association. The general theme of the talk was how we might teach the neglected skill of listening in a structured, research-informed way and provided practical classroom examples of bottom-up skill practice (including phonics tasks) and two-way listening, including activities such as "whole body listening", question-answer and specific games where the focus is on developing listening skill.

Gianfranco Conti and I are together working on a book with the working title Breaking the Sound Barrier.



Comments

  1. Unknown21 November 2017 at 06:02

    Interpersonal, 2 way listening... you could add AIM here!
    When I taught grade 1 Immersion, the young students came to me with no prior French. My language block was 100 minutes per day. I divided that into 50 minutes for AIM, 50 minutes for phonics in the first term of school. In the second term, I continued with this model but because the students had by then developed better independent and group work skills, and because they were familiar with the resources, I was able to embellish the literacy block by doing centre work. Centre 1-Working with words; Centre 2 -Phonics; Centre 3 -AIM; Centre 4 -Reading a-z on computers OR Listening with ear phones to stories being read; Centre 5-small group reading with teacher. It worked well and my program touched on all 4 strands, (listening, speaking, reading and writing)

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    Replies
    1. Steve Smith21 November 2017 at 08:33

      Thanks for leaving a comment, Pauline. For those unaware AIM stands for Accelerated Integrated Methodology, an approach used in Ontarion schools and elsewhere around the world.

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