[senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils

But the point is LISTENING skills and dictation is just part of the

There is a tiny grain of truth among the pile of junk in Olanys 
'contribution.' The use of dictation to promote listening and other literacy 
skills has to be carefully targetted or the effort is wasted. To employ a 
shotgun approach of using this strategy with any child would be ludicrous 
nonsense and I don't think any teacher would do that.

Listening skills have something in common with all other skills and that is 
that  they respond only to repeated, successful practice - that is what 
makes them skills. There is no other route to the acquistion of any skill.

Dictation used to be a teacher reading from a sheet at the pace of the 
slowest child in the group. The dictating teacher had to continuously scan 
the group to see who was finished and who was still writing - but that was 
donkeys years ago - the world has moved on a long way since then. Modern 
dictation exercises are carefully targetted for specific groups - they work 
at an individual pace which is determined by each individual child itself 
and they employ supportive, interactive  techniques which ensure that the 
child enjoys a measure of unaccumstomed, self-esteem boosting success. They 
appear to learn quite quickly that all they have to do is  LISTEN and their 
literacy achievements soar.

The particular product I mentioned was developed in four different learning 
support departments, with and for Year 7 children whose reading was 'on the 
cusp' ie about reading-age 9 but whose general literacy skills, including 
listening skills, were still stubbornly poor, possibly at about Level 2 or 
3.

Towards the end of the year, when I hope to have feedback from a large 
number of schools in several countries, if the results are anything like the 
results obtained in trials, I think that SENCo will have access to a new and 
highly effective remedial tool.
We shall see.

Eddie C.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Allyson Bremner" <a.bremner at oratory.co.uk>
To: <Olanys at aol.com>; <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:00 PM
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils

> But the point is LISTENING skills and dictation is just part of the 
> training of the ear and brain to develop the art of listening accurately. 
> Pre-printed sheets are lovely to revise from but don't actually provide 
> any development of the individual.  Ask any EFL teacher.
> I have a book which I use for listening skills where the kids have to mark 
> on a graph various points according to verbal instructions i.e fill in 
> square 12 across and 6 down etc and it eventually makes a picture and they 
> can tell if they have been listening if the picture looks correct.  I got 
> it from Better Books but can't remember what it is called as I am at home 
> and not in school mode yet!
> Ally
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk on behalf of Olanys at aol.com
> Sent: Thu 17/08/2006 20:13
> To: senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
> Cc:
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils
>
>
>
> When I worked with severely dyslexic children the dyslexic  resource base
> teacher informed the staff that these children were not to  take down 
> dictation
> under any circumstances - it is a nightmare for them and a  futile 
> exercise
> when pre-printed information sheets can so easily be provided  with very 
> little
> extra effort by teachers.
>
> Taking down dictation involves a myriad of skills and stages, many of 
> which
> are extemely difficult for pupils with SpLD and for some impossible and 
> very
> distressing...not to mention unnecessary. The same applies to the awful 
> time
> consuming task of copying from textbooks in these days of scanners and
> printers.
>
>
> Training  children who struggle to do so is a cruel waste of time and 
> effort
> for all  involved. I also think exercises like this are an unnecessary 
> waste
> of time  after a long and arduous day trying to cope at school and endure
> homework.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Aly
>
> Chair Auditory  Processing Disorder in the UK/APDUK
> www.lacewingmultimedia.com/APD.htm
> www.apduk.org
>
>
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