Developing MFL speaking and listening skills

In this clip taken from The Creative Classroom series by CrunchEd productions, Mark Pentleton from Radio Lingua Schools shows how GarageBand, the audio editor that comes bundled free with Mac computers can be used to promote speaking and listening skills in learning Spanish. The footage was filmed at St Mark's Primary School in Irvine during a recent workshop and examples of the pupils' final podcasts can be found here.

As Mark points out in his blog post, the technique of re-ordering and muting tracks can be replicated in Audacity which runs on Macs and PCs. This is how it is done.

1. Set the tracks to record as Mono by clicking on the Edit Menu, Preferences and selcting Mono from the Recording Channels' dropdown menu.

 

2. Click the red record button to record the first track of the conversation.
3. Click the yellow stop button to stop recording.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 as many times as is necessary.
5. If you can no longer see the tracks you are recording because they are appearing at the bottom of the screen, click on the View Menu and Fit Vertically.

 

6. To re-order any track, click on the dropdown arrow on the left hand side and select Move Track Down or Move Track Up.

 

7. Mute all the tracks, by clicking on the Mute button on the left hand side of each one
8. Unmute a track and click the green play button to play it.

9. Click on the dropdown arrow on the left hand side and move it either up or down into the correct position.
10. Mute the re-ordered track.
11. Repeat steps 8-10 until all the tracks are back in the correct order.
12. Unmute all the tracks.
13. Click on the Time Shift tool (the horizontal doubled headed arrow icon) and drag the tracks from left to right so they don't play over the top of each other. Notice the cursor has changed to a horizontal double-headed arrow too.

 

If some of the tracks disappear on the right hand side, click on the Fit Project in Window icon (Magnify Glass with a horizontal to headed arrow underneath). 

 

14. Click on the Selection tool (the icon which looks like a capital I) to revert the cursor to its default look.
15. To record your own version of the conversation, click on the Edit Menu and Preferences, put a tick in the box next to Play other tracks while recording new one and click OK.

 

16. Click the record button and repeat each phrase in order. You may need to use the Time Shift tool again to ensure there is a big enough gap before the next track begins.
17. Click the yellow stop button to stop recording. Your completed version of the repeated conversation will then appear as the last track.

 

18. Mute the other tracks to listen to your version. If you are not happy with it, delete it and repeat from step 16.
19. Once you are happy with how it sounds, delete the original by clicking the X on the left hand side of each track.

 

20. Export the track as an mp3 file (see this post for an explanation on how to do this).

Comments

[Graham Davies]

Useful stuff, Mark, if you have access to a Mac and the GarageBand software. There is no question that Macs are superior machines if you are developing multimedia applications. My daughter runs a 100% Mac-based graphic design business, and I am always impressed by the ease with which she can handle graphics, sound and video compared with my clumsy efforts on a PC. However, the database of my own business (which sells software to schools) shows that over 90% of schools in the UK use PCs as their main machines. Of course, Audacity can also do what Mark describes, but it would be a bit clumsy and time-consuming.

Our local school use to have an authoring tool called Speaker Author, produced by NeuroConcept in France: http://www.neuroconcept.com

I don’t know if it’s still available, but it simplified the process of setting up speaking exercises.

The CD-ROMs produced by EuroTalk and Virtual Languages contain lots of ready-made speaking activities.

Graham