On the Fringes of Our Region-Listening, Language Awareness and Authentic 'Material'

Just got back from the slightly warmer house of Angeles on another sprightly morning. One in which the ladies did themselves proud. Maria had asked if they could review the lexis we had looked at last time,topic  'the weather´', if you recall. I spotted that the widescreen TV in the corner was hooked up to a PC and so we adjourned to the comfy sofa and clicked onto the BBC's regional weather report for the North-East of England and by the end of the 90 minute lesson they  had seen this particular spoken text no fewer than 8 times, reviewed a number of sections of it in detail, successfully completed a good half dozen tasks of varying complexity and been guided to notice the pattern adj + adv, as in bitterly cold, picked up a number of examples of ellipsis, been totally engaged with real text with a real communicative purpose, (their attention being absolute throughout), as well as expanding and filling gaps in their reportoires with useful items such as mild, a little bit milder, chilly, largely dry, east/west  of + NP etc. 


What struck me most today was the power of technology to allow for this sort of fast paced and totally focussed exposure to the living language being used in real time by a native speaker in a recognisable and familiar context stripped bare of the niceties and conventions of the classroom. Additionally, I thought as I reviewed this expererience in my head while crossing the bridge over the railway tracks on my way back, the teacher though, better 'facilitator' here,  really does need to language aware to pull this off, needs to be able to judge the appropriacy of the task to the learners in front of, or beside them in this case, and needs to know the learners and their developing interlanguage well. 


I had to think on my feet for this one. As a facilitator, my own attention was total too. Organising, setting up tasks-running, closing, following up, editing, explaining, drawing attention to things, and judging when best to do this, supplying information, and holding back when fluency was at issue. There's a time and place for all of this and more. The use of the internet in this way, at once;

• Provides a superbly tuned aid for the facilitator to focus on just what's needed, when it's  needed and straight from the horse's mouth- no getting away from it, this is a real weather forecast and if its too fast then the tasks given need to be graded. This is the real language at work here and this really has to be the model, source and goal. Its a question of learning how to manage it and increasing our own reportoire of delivery options
• Rivetting. This was one of the fastest paced lessons I've been a part of in a while. Pushing the limits of their listening skills and making them work for their biscuit. They said as much at the end, and I meekly apologised for having pushed them so hard. They were having none of it. This, for me, is a key indicator of a successful lesson. Maria had said that the 90 minutes has positively sped by (not in those words of course-but give it time) and I could do nothing but agree. 
• Can give the whole picture of what is going on in the act of communicating. The body language of the forecaster with her arms sweeping east and then west across the map as her monlogue grew in a flurry of snippets of discourse, all contextualised, all aimed at an audience and all aiding the listener to extract a clear unequivocal message.The maps, the familiarity of TV weather forecast conventions are contributory factors in opening the leaners schemata from top down. We went from the general down to the nitty-gritty and back again at will all at the click of a mouse. 
• Gives first hand exposure to register and features of discourse. The semi-conversational tone of the presenter and her use of ellipsis were focussed on-at their prompting. We had introduced these ideas a while back and they have made the realisation that it is neither helpful nor accurate to judge spoken discourse and rank it as somehow lower than its written cousin in the great chain of being. This is a crucial for realisation for learners at this level (and any other-come to think of it-it's all about selecting the task). So they were on track, and I must say fascinated, by the examples of ellision they uncovered, viz Western side of the Pennines, staying drier in the east, a little bit milder on Saturday, problems with ice etc.

And then it was lunchtime. Wanted to say more about listening in this posting. That can wait. I have some authentic Portuguese cooking to notice and explore waiting in the Transmontana takeaway. Wonder what'll be on offer today...sure to be warm.