la démarche english

THE APPROACH

In order to improve the oral skills of pupils, regardless of their level, several echo albums have been put in place within the Mlf/OSUI network, in kindergarten classrooms or in the context of FFL (French Foreign Language) workshops. For this reason, teachers followed the path of Philippe Boisseau, creator of this system, and they take over his methodologiy and his principles.

What is an echo album ?

It is a pedagogical tool designed to help children to build their own oral language. It draws on photographs representing activities done by child, and it operates on the well thought out interactions principle, effective feedbacks; offering the child some oral forms, beyond his current capabilties, in the proximal zone of his development.

The echo albums can be done in first and third-persone. An echo album is made to accelerate the construction naturally operated by the child. It is designed to make him achieve faster progress in the acquisition of an efective oral language since it refers to an echo of the child's message at a higher compexity level.

The goal is to efficiently express himself orally, not to solely focus on the writing structures in order for a child learn to read. For the same reason, children don't dictate the texts of the echo albums to adults. Even if it passes through oral, dictating to adults is a writing activity, which encourages children to drag their forms into the structures of writing whereas the echo album ensures efficient oral structures.

Philippe Boisseau - Les albums écho PS-MS-GS - Editions Retz

Benefits of digital technology :

The digital version of the echo album allows:

- an independant practice of the child who listen to the teacher version.

- the easy communication with families.

- the pupil to work outside the classroom.

- a collective presentation of echo albums using the video projector.

- the creation of a digital echo albums collection (sound and image).

The stages of the process :

1st step:

The teacher conducts a diagnostic evaluation of the oral capabilities of his pupils.

4th step:

The first words of the pupil are recorded.

7th step:

The pupil is recorded a second time when his echo album is presented to the rest of the class.

2nd step:

The pupil discovers on the tablet pictures of actual class situations "echoing" his own experience.

5th step:

The teacher records the feedback.

8th step:

In class, in an independant workshop with the tablet, the pupil consolidates diferent linguistic structures.

3rd step:

The pupil selects a photograph.

6th step:

The pupil works on the exact wording in a listenning area in the classroom provised for that purpose.

A sequence of work organised in "progress groups"

This working method is conducted through all the Iberian Peninsula in different French schools in Spain and in Portugal. Firstly, this is about choosing a competence (here: the competence 4 "Telling, making oneself understand, an experience unknow by the interlocutor or an invented story", from the "adopt the language" field...), enabling pupils to be grouped by their level of atteinment in order to work on this competence starting from diferent level of knowledge.

The group A is equivalent to "small talkers" - The group G to "more expert talker"