Listening skills course prospectus

The seminar is suitable for all ringers, especially those who are keen to understand the listening skill better. It is particularly suitable for teachers of ringers since they will pass on what they learn to a larger number of people.

Aims

To give insights into the listening process and how to develop listening skills
To use practical tasks to exercise participants' listening skills
To encourage interaction and sharing of ideas
To give the impetus for further development

Format

We can vary the suggested programme to suit your needs and local conditions. The course has a strong practical content.

The three sessions are based on:

a standard ringing simulator,
a listening tutor (!Strike), and
CD recorded ringing.

Suggested programme

This programme has worked well on many occasions but can be varied to suit your needs:

8.00 - 8.30

Arrive and set up simulator (unless one is already fitted)

9.00

Brief assistants (if any) on practical sessions, answer any questions

10.00

Coffee for participants

10.15

Welcome by host organisation

10.20

Why listening is important and why it gets neglected

10.35

Listening skills and how to develop them

11.15

Demonstration of listening tutor and recorded ringing

11.40

Move to tower

11.45

Demonstration of simulator

Practical sessions

Group A

12.00	Simulator
13.00	Lunch
1.45	CD
2.30	!Strike
3.15	Tea

Group B

12.00	!Strike
12.45	Lunch
1.30	Simulator
2.30	CD
3.15	Tea

Group C

12.00	CD
12.45	Lunch
1.45	!Strike
2.30	Simulator
3.30	Tea

3.45

General discussion (with experiences - if any)

4.15

Finish

Notes to programme

Each group cycles through the three different practical topics. The staggered times are based on our experience that people need longer in the simulator session.
All sessions will include time for questions.
The amount of time needed prior to the official start will depend on how much setting up and briefing is necessary.

Number of students

The number of students is limited only by the practical sessions. The ideal number for each group is about 6. The simulator group should not be bigger than this but the other two can be up to 12. Therefore the working limit for a standard course is 18. We can run a double size course (36) providing the tower is large enough to use two separate simulators (one with student and tutor on headphones).

Facilities

You will need a hall, (preferably warm), with at least one side room for use during the practical sessions.
A white board, flip chart or overhead projector can be useful, but are not essential.
Based on our experience it is preferable to 'eat in'. People continue talking over lunch and it takes up less time than going out to a pub (especially if you stagger the times: see Notes to programme).
You need a tower near the hall. (If it already has a simulator fitted, it will save us bringing one and reduce the effort setting up beforehand. Likewise, if you have a CD player, and/or a computer running RISC-OS, it will reduce what we have to bring.)
You need a 13A power point in each location, including the tower.

Arrangements

We assume you will make all local arrangements, including registration, hall and meals. We will provide material for handouts in camera ready form for you to copy.

Group leaders

We prefer you to provide a group leader> for each practical session. We don't expect them to have any prior experience of the techniques used, other than to be competent to supervise someone ringing a bell safely. They will have briefing notes in advance and everything will be demonstrated before splitting into groups. Their role will be to act as 'chairmen' not 'experts'. Ideally they will remain with the same group and therefore experience each practical session.

If you run a double size course, then you will need more group leaders (ideally two per group of twelve, but you could manage with 3+1 where the extra one acts as second group leader for all three simulator sessions).

Experience

We can include this session if any of your members has already taught, or tried to teach listening, and would like to share their experiences, or if anyone would like to talk about how they approached the development of their own listening skills.

More information

For more information, or specific arrangements, please contact either :

Barrie Dove (Committee Chairman) on 01423 863005
or: Heather Peachey (Committee Secretary) on 01652 688819

the central council of church bell ringers