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Clicker®

Teaching EAL

Hounslow Talking Stories Project

The Hounslow Talking Stories Project is the result of a collaboration between the Teaching Support Service, which supports support children with special educational needs, and the Hounslow Language Service, which supports children with English as an additional language, in Hounslow, West London. The aim was to devise a set of literacy resources that are as inclusive as possible.

The result is a CD with three multi-lingual, multimedia stories and a sequencing activity for each. All the stories are presented in eleven versions. Nine versions have English with another home language, one has English with British Sign Language using video and one has symbol supported English using Rebus symbols from Widgit Software. All the stories and activities are fully switch accessible. Users who cannot operate a keyboard or mouse are able to use the materials.

The stories are presented in English and an alternate language. Each page has the text in both languages and the user can listen to each language by clicking on a speaker icon. Each version also has a sequencing activity related to the text.

The books can be printed for use away from the computer.

Additional stories or new language versions of the existing stories can be added by users.

The stories were produced using the Clicker 4 program from Crick Software. This was chosen because it provides an easy way to assemble multimedia resources and it has integrated switch access.

The stories have been combined into a CD that can be purchased from the Hounslow Language Service for £12. Users must have Clicker 4 installed on their computer to use the CD. Dual language printed copies of the stories are also available. Contact Karen Kadem by email: karen.kedem@hounslowvtc.org.uk or telephone 020 8583 4166/4167.

The HLS website has information on using dual language texts. You can also see an online version of one of the stories (without speech) at the HLS website: www.ealinhounslow.org.uk