Creating a podcast
using your mobile devices is very easy. Podcasts serve as great listening and
speaking opportunities for learners of all ages. Audioboo is both a simple podcasting website
and an application for İpads, Androids and Nokia phones, which makes recording
available anywhere anytime. It allows learners to make their digital recording
either by uploading one from their computer or record it using the recording
button on the site. You may choose to publish it publicly or send privately as
audio messages. I can incorporate this technology when communicating with my
learners for giving feedback on both written work and their podcasts, making
announcements, reminders, and giving assignments such as dictation
activities. Learners can create and
listen to podcasts on any topic of their interest. Teachers can easily prepare
comprehension questions related to the podcasts that may appeal to their
learners interests. Learners can make comments on the podcasts they listen to.
One great example of having them record their own is news stories. Nik Peachley
(n.d) suggests having learners brainstorm news stories they heard recently and
go online to do research to gather more information. Then the teacher goes over
the structure of a new story in terms of the way main points are given by the
anchorman, interviews with a witness and summary of the main points to the
studio anchorman. Learners can be asked to write their news stories for the
educator to give feedback before they record them. Groups could be asked to
listen to two groups and leave a written or an oral message. You may explore this site on www.audioboo.com
www.listen-and-write.com is a great dictation site that does not
require registration unless you want to track your students’ progress and make
your recordings. It allows learners to dictate any recording either their
teacher's own recording or the songs, news items, and the like the site offers.
If it's the teacher's, then the teacher needs to add the transcript of the
audio and split it into sentences. Then the computer breaks the dictation into
chunks giving a hint if the learner gets stuck, and repeats them until the
student has completed the sentence. I
could use this software in the call lab at the presentation stage of my grammar
lessons. I could have them dictate a paragraph where target structures are
introduced. They can discover the use and the meaning of them after the
dictation exercise. Also, learners can choose the recordings such as their
favorite songs or speeches of famous people or upload their own for their
friends. Some of the existing recordings
are placed into different levels, so students can choose one according to their
level of English.
References:
Peachey, N (n.d). Tech
Tool for Teachers: Podcasting. Creating a News Broadcast. Retrieved from
http://www.onestopenglish.com/8407.file
Hi Su,
ReplyDeleteI am very interested in the dictation site that you describe on your blog post. It looks like a fun and easy way of practicing spelling. I am a firm believer in the place of dictation activities in language learning, and I will definitely benefit from your suggestions. Thank you for giving us these great ideas; your post was very informative.
Izlem.