[senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary pupils

Hi Eddie

I think my worry is that while a successful transcription may suggest
good listening ( on a certain level - although I think it could be done
without particularly actively engaging with the task intellectually) any
'difficulty' with transcription cannot be necessarily attributed to poor
listening as there are so many other processes involved in the
transcription process. I think that improving listening through literacy
is going to disadvantage those whose literacy is  already poor as a
result of poor listening. Although some pupils will respond, many will
not. Listening has to be meaningful and dictation can be fairly
meaningless. It is simply writing down a representation of what we hear
without necessarily understanding it. Listening involves extracting some
sort of meaning from what is 'heard'. Conjugating verbs does have some
relevance for Language students as maths theory does for maths students.
You could argue that perhaps no-one needs to learn French and no-one
needs to learn mathematical formulae etc. but I think that's a different
point to the one I am trying to make which is that Dictation is a
high-level skill which is too complex to address very poor listening
skills. How can a pupil who struggles with literacy ever improve their
listening if you are only offering a written task? I quite accept that
it could be useful but there are other approaches and techniques which
could prove more accessible for some students.

Clare

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-----Original Message-----
From: Eddie Carron [mailto:eddiecarron at btconnect.com] 
Sent: 18 August 2006 15:38
To: clare north
Cc: Senco-Forum
Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
pupils

Of course, dictation is not a 'life skill' but then neither is
conjugating 
French verbs. I dont think my maths teacher thought he was teaching me a

'life skill' when he taught me that the square on the hypotenuse of a 
right-angled triangle was equal to the sum of the squares on the
opposite 
two sides - he probably believed that he was exercising the muscles of
my 
intellect. which is of course, the point of Education.

If a child is able to transcribe in longhand, a passage that has only 
entered his consciousness through his or her ears, I would have thought
that 
that constituted proof positive of focused listening - how else could
the 
transcription have been achieved? Since listening is a skill, what
better 
way could there be of enhancing listening skills that routinely and 
demonstrably successful experiences of focused listening.

A small number of SENCo with whom I routinely co-operate in the
development 
of my materials, initially expressed the view that if they could get
some of 
their statemented pupils to take dictation,  that would represent for
them, 
an enormous leap in progress.  This was my movitation for developing
this 
particular approach which has involved the investment of a little over
two 
years of my life. They are now achieving this routinely with the early 
versions. I know that two of them atleast are occasional lurkers on this

forum and although they would never participate, they would speak up in
no 
uncertain manner if I was misrepresenting the facts. Teachers from the
US, 
Canada, Australia and New Zealand are also contributing to the
development.

The proof of the pudding etc etc

Eddie C.

PS Again, to the off-list enquirers - email me after half term for hard 
information.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "clare north" <clare at clarenorth.co.uk>
To: "'Eddie Carron'" <eddiecarron at btconnect.com>
Cc: "Senco-Forum" <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 12:17 PM
Subject: RE: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
pupils

>
>
> ---
> 'Practice' (dictation) will not necessarily guarantee improvement in
> listening skills generally. There are several reasons why effective
> listening may be difficult including environemntal issues such as
> acoustics. I am making a distinction between hearing and listening as
> 'hearing' may be fine but the acoustics of a room, background noise
and
> various other outside influences may make 'effective listening'
> difficult. Listening also involves extracting some meaning from what
is
> heard so there has to be some previous relevant knowledge and an
> appropriate level of comprehension to make listening 'effective'. I
> would argue that dictation is only one(very limited) way of assessing
> listening. The ability to complete a dictation accurately is not a
> life-skill. Dictation may be a teaching 'tool' in some subjects but it
> is should not be used as the main way of teaching children to listen.
In
> fact, Dictation relies on memory, fine-motor skills, speed of
> processing, phoneme detection etc. which are difficult skills  for
many
> children (and adults) so I'm not sure that the ability to complete a
> dictation is necessarily the most useful way to assess or remediate
> general poor listening. It is certainly an extremely stressful
activity
> for many dyslexic and language-impaired individuals and, while it may
> serve a purpose when teaching literacy, I really doubt whether it
would
> improve listening ability in real-life situations - which is what I
> thought the original query was referring to.
>
> Clare
>
>
> This email and any attachments have been scanned by AVG AntiVirus 7.0.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
> [mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of Eddie
> Carron
> Sent: 18 August 2006 11:25
> To: The Bodiens; Olanys at aol.com; senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
> pupils
>
>
> .....The only components of a skill that respond to practice are in
> fact, the
> mechanical aspects such as decoding/blending in reading, steering and
> changing gear in driving etc. The listening skill has fewer mechanical
> components and therefore it is the most difficult one to exercise and
> assess. Having said that, there is nothing any teacher can do to
improve
> the
> listening skills of any child, other than to provide opportunities for
> positive practice. The teacher's skill lies in ingenuity of matching
the
>
> child to an appropriate resource., whatever the nature of the child's
> learning difficulties.  Blanket condemnations such as 'dyslexics
should
> never be given dictation' are injurious and destructive!
>
> Dictation, (in the modern sense of the word), is just one of these
> approaches which is not only very practical but also extremely
> productive
> provided the level of challenge it poses is appropriate for the
> particular
> child.  And is does centrally involve listening. When it is a computer
> programme of supported dictation exercises, ten children can be
working
> on
> different but appropriate topics and each at their own speed. Where
the
> child produces an exercise book with a reasonably accurate
transcription
>
> from dictation, that is unassailable evidence that a good quality of
> listening has taken place. If you can get the child to do this
> routinely,
> you are winning the battle of listening skills and in very measurable
> way.
> Where the quality of the transciption improves over time, listening
> skills
> as well as general literacy skills, are inevitably also improving.
>
> This holds true whether the child has a specific or a non-specific
> learning
> difficulty.
>
> Eddie C.
>
> PS To the off-list enquirers, email me again at the end of October.
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "The Bodiens" <bodiens at emirates.net.ae>
> To: <Olanys at aol.com>; <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
> Sent: Friday, August 18, 2006 10:18 AM
> Subject: Re: [senco-forum] Developing listening skills in secondary
> pupils
>
>
>> Dictation was the one thing that worked for a severely dyslexic
> student
>> that I taught.  First of all we used Acceleread Accelewrite which
> raised
>> his nonword score from 1st to 24th percentile then we did dictations
> 3x
>> weekly with more from Mum at home, using text to speech software.
The
>
>> previous year we had followed the standard dyslexia intervention but
> come
>> the Septmeber my student had forgotten most of what he had learned.
>> Practise of the connection between speech and print through
dictatiosn
> led
>> to him becoming a reader.
>>
>> Perhaps it depends how you pre-teach basic skills, then use
dictation?
>
>> Dictation for the purpose of learning to read/spell, with the right
> tools,
>> can be very helpful.  Dictation for note-taking and dissemination of
>> information at secondary school is probably another matter.
>>
>> Philippa
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: <Olanys at aol.com>
>> To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
>> Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 8:13 PM
>> 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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>>
>
>
> 