I often feel that we do not devote enough attention to listening, whereas it is obviously an important skill if we are expecting our students to acquire a language through comprehensible input. Perhaps the most important skill of all.
Circling can be used by all teachers, with any method, to make their lessons more effective and to help students acquire new vocabulary and new grammatical structures. Susan Gross, a French teacher in Colorado, developed developed the technique into a fine art in order to give her students repetitive comprehensible input while keeping them engaged
My adult French native students have problems with “should have” and “could have”…
Every summer for the last ten years something magic has happened in Agen, France. Teachers from around the world have gathered in a friendly little town in southwest France and particpated in what many of them have called a life-changing experience. They come together because they have heard of a different way of teaching languages, a way of creating stories with their students and building a different kind of classroom. They come with open hearts and open minds and they leave with smiles and warm memories and many new friends. That is the magic of Agen.