VOICETHREAD CLASS DIRECTORY
Designed by: Kristen Voss
Overview: In this activity, students use Voicethread to assemple a pictoral, interactive class directory. The students will each introduce themselves by leaving voice comments on their own uploaded picture. Each student will then be required to leave a voice comment and/or question at every student's picture. The purpose of this activity is to provide beginning level ESL adult students with an authentic speaking and listening task in which they use language skills developed during a first unit on Introductions/Personal Information.
Activity Plan:
Objective: Students will create an interactive class directory using language skills related to the topics of greeting and introductions.
Background: Before starting this task, the teacher will have used previous class periods to introduce students to and have students practice vocabulary and language skills related to greetings, introductions, and talking about family and interests. Grammar skills involved are the use of subject pronouns, the simple tense "be" verb, and asking wh-questions using what + "be" verb. Examples include: Hello, good morning, my name is _______, I am from ________, What is your name?, What is your favorite hobby? The students would have practiced these forms using the class textbook and activities designed by the teacher.
Resources Needed: Internet access, projector, Voicethread account, computer access and mircophones for teacher and students.
Presentation:
Practice:
Homework:
Evaluation:
Demonstration: Class Directory
Conclusion:
This activity is a final project in a unit on Introductions/Personal Information. It is designed to get students to use language skills to create a non-language- related product. There are many benefits to using Voicethread to enhance language learning through this activity. Our class textbook (Chapelle & Jamieson, 2008) references research that states that certain pedagogical principles encourage the development of pronunciation and thus speaking skills. Included is the fact that learners need to produce lots of sentences on their own, receive relevant feedback, and feel comfortable while practicing in the classroom. Voicethread seems effective in fulfilling these priniciples. Voicethread gives students ample opportunity to produce sentences/utterances about a specific, relevant, authentic topic. A blog post at edutpoia.org (Weir, 2008) explains that this tool makes all different types of learners feel comfortable practicing the language, as it is more private than speaking in a large classroom. It gives all students opportunity to provide input at their own pace. Finally, while Voicethread does not evaluate the accuracy of student input, it does provide opportunity for student self-evaluation, as well as collaberative evaulation, as both teacher and students listen to the conversations and provide feedback. In fact, perhaps common pronunciation or grammar issues could be pointed out and addressed by the teacher in subsequent lessons/activities.
In designing this activity, I have tried to capture these features of Voicethread that promote language learning for beginner level students. Although the quantity of student output might not be great, this activity gets students producing language they have learned thus far in a basic-level course. It allows students to create meaningful language in a guided setting, which is important for beginning learners. Finally, students have a useful product to show for their efforts.
References
Chapelle, C.A., & Jamieson, J. (2008). Tips for teaching with call: Practical approaches to computer-assisted language learning. White Plains, New York: Pearson Education, Inc.
Weir, L. (2008, April 16). Voicethread extends the classroom with interactive multimedia albums. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/voicethread-interactive-multimedia-albums
Special thanks to my sisters, Katie and Megan, for demonstrating what the final product of this activity would look and sound like!