Using audio creatively in the MFL classroom

USB microphones, digital voice recorders and mobile phones make recording audio in the classroom a straightforward plug and play process which pupils like and find engaging. Digital audio formats are far more flexible than traditional analogue cassette tape and can be used in a variety of multimedia projects to promote oral/aural skills, record speaking assessments and improve pronunciation. Podcasting spoken work can also offer personalised distance learning opportunities, celebrate pupils' achievements and allow for peer assessment.

Now that language departments are expected to submit their GCSE, AS and A2 speaking assessments as mp3 files, the need to find out how to record good quality audio reliably and effectively has become more pressing. I hope this post provides some 'sound' advice in this respect and shows how some teachers are already using audio creatively to produce exciting outcomes for their pupils.

Geoff Freymuth from Jefferson Middle School has put together a comprehensive guide for getting started with podcasting. Designed for teachers, the presentation explains what are podcasts, how to use them in education and how to create them with Audacity.

Likewise, Thomas Sheppard from Athabasca University has created a great set of Audacity screencasts which again explain the basics and more. These include:

• The Audacity Interface
• Sound settings in Vista
• Recording
• Basic editing
• More advanced editing
• Adding music
• Creating an intro
• Creating an outro
• Converting to mp3
• Resources 

This clip Making the Connection gives a good overview of the educational value of podcasting, how it engages students and caters to their differing needs and learning styles.

For more ideas on educational podcasting have a look too at 10 great ways of using Audacity with your students, tips on recording good audio, microphone techniques, creating and publishing podcasts and How to use podcasts in the classroom

A number of trailblazing language teachers have also been exploring the use of audio in the MFL classroom and how it can offer a new approach to language learning. Isabelle Jones spoke on the topic at the recent TeachMeetNW and subsequently created a wonderful slidecast to illustrate her ideas.

Here too is the audio of her original talk captured from the Flashmeeting, put through The Levelator and edited in Audacity.

Download_using_digital_audio_in_the_MFL_classroom.mp3

At TeachMeetNE2, Helena Butterfield gave an inspiring talk on Top tools to get pupils talking which you can listen to below and check out the links she refers to on her Langwitch Chronicles blog as well.

Download_top_tools_to_get_pupils_talking.mp3

Lisa Stevens gave an excellent virtual presentation during last week's EdTechRoundup TeachMeet about how she has been using digital audio in her primary Spanish classes to promote speaking skills. Thanks to Lisa, her school now has their own podcast and pupils have also had the chance of creating Vokis and VoiceThreads too. Listen to the audio of her talk here.

Download_using_sound_recording_in_the_primary languages_classroom.mp3

Samantha Lunn recently published Tom Barrett's presentation Twenty Three interesting Ways to use Audio in your Classroom which gives lots of food for thought about the potential of using digital audio.

José Picardo produced this attractive Prezi on podcasting, a nice accompaniment to his earlier Podcasting in 5 easy steps presentation mentioned fondly by Dominic McGladdery only last week. 

Lesley Welsh dipped her toe into podcasting with Podomatic to help a Year 10 pupil revise for her speaking test.

Esther Hardman ran some training on Easi-speak microphones, Audacity and podcasting recently to support local primary colleagues and judging by the Wallwisher she published it was certainly effective!

Florence Lyons blogged about her Easi-speak microphone too saying how impressed she was by it and Alice Ayel described recording audio in her classroom as a joy!

This clip will give you a good overview of its potential.

Last, but not least Suzi Bewell wrote a great article for the Sec Ed magazine in October about podcasting and in particular Mark Pentleton's Verbcast. Suzi has also been experimenting with iPadio and AudioBoo as a way of practising French songs, pronunciation and phonics.

Comments

[Isabelle Jones]

Hi Joe,

What a fantastic post - a must-read for anybody looking at developing their digital audio practice in the MFL classroom. Thanks for the mention as well as for your good work on the TMNW audio. This is fantastic!

Isabelle

[Valerie McIntyre]

Hi Joe

Very timely indeed - this continues to be an area of urgent need and some frustration for colleagues. The blog post is very welcome and will serve us well.

Thanks for all the support and advice

Valerie Mc

[Joe Dale]

Thank you ladies!

It was great to finally publish all these links that have been kicking around my Google Reader as starred items for a while now.

The audio brings the post to life and I'm delighted how it showcases the fantastic work of like-minded language teachers who are willing to share their ideas at TeachMeets and on their blogs.

¡Ay, caramba!

[Jenny Léger]

I am going to be reading this with interest. I am a teacher of English in France and we have recently been "given" a "malette iPod" which I beginning to experiment with. Do you have any experience of some gadgets and gizmos ???

[Joe Dale]

Hi Jenny,

Thanks for your comment. I googled a "malette iPod" and it seems to be a case for recharging iPods. Is that right?

Anyway, for iPod accessories I would recommend the Belkin Tune Talk for recording audio and the iTrip for listening to audio in the car.

Hope that helps

Best wishes

Joe

[Patricia Galien]

Hi Joe, Thanks for this post and your others! Just wondering if anyone knows of a site where you can post audio and make it publicly available -- like a YouTube site, but for aduio only. Thanks for any help you can give. Patricia

[Joe Dale]

Hi Patricia,

Thanks for your comment. There are many sites where you can upload audio for free. I would recommend you have a look at Podomatic, Podbean and Blip.tv

Joe

[David]

Inspiring to see such exploration and innovation going into MFL. Lots of food for thought. Great post!

[Graham Davies]

Some good ideas in your blog, Joe. Great stuff!

I haven’t used digital audio as a classroom teacher since around 1992-1993. It was just beginning to catch on in a big way at that time and then I retired from full-time teaching. I was, however, involved in the design of materials incorporating digital audio during most of the1990s and also in the early 2000s when I was contracted as a consultant to the BBC in the production of German Steps. I began by using the first version of the Sound Blaster sound card and the accompanying Creative WaveStudio software, which worked rather like Audacity and was bundled free of charge with the sound card,

More recently, I have used digital audio mainly as a learner, brushing up my knowledge of Spanish and Hungarian and acquiring a bit of very basic Polish from scratch. As a learner, I have found the following activities particularly useful:

1. Listen / respond / playback / compare. OK, it’s old hat and mimics what we used to do with the early AAC tape recorders and analogue language labs, but I still find it a useful activity as I need to hear what I sound like when learning a new language completely from scratch, especially a language like Polish, which has some very difficult sounds that are not easy to master without a lot of practive. The bonus that digital audio offers over the old analogue systems is that the sounds can be combined with images and the written forms of the words on screen, all of which helps reinforcement. I used the EuroTalk CD-ROMs and mastered around 300 words and phrases of Polish in three weeks, which I found useful on two visits that I made to Krakow.

2. Clicking on a word on screen to hear what it sounds like. We built this into the TELL Consortium Encounters series of CD-ROMs, which were produced by the University of Hull in the mid-1990s. Another feature of this series was the role-play exercise in which the learner could take either partner's role in a dialogue, record his/her own voice, listen to the playback of the whole dialogue with the recordings slotted into the correct places and save the best version of the recorded dialogue onto disk and hand it to the teacher for assessment.

3. Gap-filling, Cloze or Total Cloze in response to an audio stimulus, ranging from typing in single words or a whole text, i.e. automated dictation. It’s an easy activity to set up. All the teacher has to do is provide a text and audio recordings and use an authoring package that takes care of the interactivity and feedback. Feedback can be quite finely tuned with some authoring packages, to such an extent that the computer tells the learner which individual letters are right or wrong when mistakes are made.

If you don’t have the time, expertise or inclination to write your own materials incorporating digital audio, there are a lot of useful materials that are commercially available these days. I quite like the EDpaX series for IWBs.

Regards
Graham

[Jenny Léger]

a malette iPod is a bit more complex than just a recharger ... it is a macbook with a setof 15 Nanos for individual work plus special microphone thingies that enable recording onto ipods. Great gadget value and the kids love it.

[Joe Dale]

Thanks for your comments David and Graham and cheers for the explanation Jenny. Sounds really good

[Patricia Galien]

Thank you Joe. I will check out those sites. Thanks again, too, for your inspiring work. Patricia

[Joe Dale]

You're welcome Patricia. I can see you are already up and running ;) http://pjgalien.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/the-writing-process/

[Patricia Galien]

Thanks Joe! After I read your suggestions, it didn't take long to get things up and running. I'm looking forward to exploring Podbean as well. Again, thanks for your help. :) Patricia

[Perekam Suara]

I think your methods are useful. I'll try them in my class. Hope the kids like that.