Professional Learning Workshops with Dr Gianfranco Conti (The Language Gym)

2.00 pm—3.30 pm

Dr. Gianfranco Conti will discuss the challenges that the finite processing and long-term storage capacity of the human brain and other affective factors contextual to language learning pose to the foreign language teachers. Based on the latest cognitive and second language acquisition research, he will suggest practical ways to maximize teaching and learning time by (a) embedding ILRs (Implicit Learning Routines); (b) teaching high-surrender-value functional chunks as opposed to single words and (c) a range of recycling techniques which maximize uptake of the core elements of the target curriculum through extensive spaced exposure to comprehensible input and pushed output.

4.00 pm—5.30 pm

Dr. Gianfranco Conti will propose that the listening-instruction methodologies currently in use are flawed as they focus on the product of listening, i.e. the answers to questions on a text, rather than on the process of listening, (i.e. learning how to listen). As an alternative, he will advocate an approach to Modern Languages listening instruction based on Skill Theory, which addresses the most neglected dimension of aural instruction, i.e. micro-listening skills acquisition. After providing a concise account of the way aural input is processed by the human brain and discussing the challenges that L2 comprehension poses to novice-to-intermediate L2 learners, he will propose an evidence-based approach to listening instruction he calls L.A.M. (Listening as Modelling) which focuses mainly, but not exclusively, on the development of bottom-up-processing skills. A range of activities and instructional sequences illustrating his approach will also be presented, demonstrated and discussed.