Pupils given iPods as language learning aid is an article written by Helen Mooney from last week's EducationGuardian. It describes an innovative project at Astley Community High School in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland where pupils studying GCSE French and Spanish are to be given an iPod Nano in September to help them with their studies. Following a successful pilot with a group of Yr 11’s last year, Northumberland County Council decided to fund this year’s programme to encourage more pupils to use iPods creatively both in and out of the classroom.
The pilot group of volunteer pupils chose to embrace the technology by creating foreign language podcasts. They divided the process into three simple stages:
- recording with an Olympus Digital voice recorder with a noise cancelling microphone extension
- editing with free software Audacity
- uploading the podcast to the school website
One particularly successful idea was called ‘le feuilleton à 60 secondes/the 60 Second Soap’. The project report which can be downloaded from the school’s website describes the planning below:
‘The students organised themselves into pairs of teams with about 3 students in each team. The pairs met to agree a broad storyline and the characters of a French soap opera they would create. The first team of the pair then wrote and recorded (in French) the first episode of the soap. They podcasted this for the second team to hear. The second team picked up the podcast on their Nanos and after listening to it a few times they replied with the sequel episode. And so the project continues with each team leapfrogging the other’.
The PowerPoint presentation Podcasting @ Astley also available from the school website states the other ways in which pupils chose to use the iPods:
- GCSE Presentations – tailormade recordings of pre-scripted presentations read out by the teacher.
- General Conversations - recordings of general conversation that have been used to revise for the exams.
The article Rick Astley at Astley High..? Not on an iPod produced by the Northumberland County Council suggests that making and listening to podcasts in and out of the classroom, has helped pupils to absorb their foreign language vocabulary and grammar. A year 11 pupil is quoted as saying: “I listen to my pod-casts on the school bus. You can look cool and revise at the same time. I’d never get a book out on a bus”.
According to a representative from the local council, if the second phase of the iPod project proves equally successful, the scheme will be rolled out across the whole county.
"Northumberland schools have a reputation for innovation...it's great to see devices such as iPods, which as parents we worry about interfering with our children's education, being used to support learning," concluded Jim Wright, a councillor at Northumberland county council who helped with the pilot.
Useful links:
Pupils given iPods as language learning aid
Podcasting report
Podcasting @ Astley
Rick Astley at Astley High..? Not on an iPod
For more information about the iPod project, contact Dr Nigel Carrick, Assistant Headteacher at Astley Community High School: [email protected]
Hey, I go to Astley... I didn't get a word of that, and I'm in A band!
Posted by: Clare | 20/10/2007 at 22:07