Anyone who has ever tried to surf knows that it is not easy to actually catch a wave. A person has to paddle the surfboard out to where the waves are and work on his/her timing and paddle fast enough to catch the wave. In this article, the author chooses the surfing metaphor in accordance with the theme of the 2006 CALICO conference at the…

Describes a two phase experiment that was conducted at the university of Ottawa using audiocassettes and multimedia while teaching French, specifically French phonetics, intonation, and pronunciation, to a group of low-intermediate level language students. Looks at whether receptive and productive skills are influenced by the explicit teaching of…