The name on the line
A teacher is running a listening practice session with a class of eight nine-year-olds. In the recording, a girl says: 'This is my friend. Her name's Sophie - that's S-O-P-H-I-E.' The task asks the children to write each name beside the correct person in a picture. Priya writes 'Sofie'. Two other children spell the name correctly but put it next to the wrong person. The teacher has twenty minutes left and must decide what feedback to give the group, what to write in her records, and whether to replay the track, which she is allowed to do as often as she likes in class.
1. Is Priya's answer correct, and what is she actually finding difficult?
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Judge the two possible failures separately.
- Priya heard the name correctly and wrote a real, pronounceable spelling of the same name, so comprehension is intact.
- But the recording spells the name out letter by letter. The item therefore tests letter recognition and transcription, not just hearing the word. On that objective she failed.
- The slip is systematic, not careless: ph for /f/ and a dropped final e are exactly what a child who spells by sound produces.
Decision: record it as 'understood the name, missed the spelling', not as a listening failure. Replay the track and have her write the letters as she hears them, then compare with the name on the page. Correcting it silently in red teaches nothing, because she cannot yet hear the difference between her version and the spelling on the paper.
2. Two children spelled 'Sophie' correctly but put it by the wrong person. Is that the same problem?
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No - it is the opposite error and it needs different teaching.
Priya decoded the letters but not the exact spelling; these two decoded the name but lost track of who it described. With five people in a picture and five names, the real difficulty is holding the referent while the next sentence begins.
- In marking: a correct name in the wrong place is worth nothing. Position is part of the answer.
- In teaching: the fix happens before the audio starts. Give thirty seconds to look at the picture and count the people, then ask 'how will we know which one?' so children notice the distinguishing details - the girl with the bike, the man with the dog.
Treating these as the same error sends everyone away to practise spelling when two children actually need a prediction strategy.
3. Plan the remaining twenty minutes.
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Split the time by error type, not by item.
- 5 min - prediction, whole class. Picture up, no audio. Who is in it? What will we listen for? Then play once with pencils down; children only point.
- 10 min - letters, whole class. Dictate five names from the class, letters only, two seconds apart. Children write, then compare in pairs. This targets Priya's error directly and is useful for everyone.
- 5 min - self-check. Play the track again; children tick or fix their own paper in a different colour.
Rationale: one low score was hiding two different failures, and only half the time is about spelling. The second-colour self-check also leaves the teacher a record of what each child can now hear, which is more useful than the original mark.