It’s been a while, been off talking to and working with teachers in South America. Had some good fun in the hands-on sessions and in the conference sessions I managed to attend.
In one of those sessions at the LABCI 13 conference, we had a bit of dogme meets technology moment. The session A space for stories: stories in space
Valeria Franca explored ways to encourage story telling. One of the activities, Valeria showed us was based on one of our memories. By answering 6 questions we provided cues for a partner to try and piece together the memory. The 6 questions are:
Think of an object you have a strong memory about, what is it? Where is the object? Who do associate with the object? What age is the object / memory from? What sights and sounds do you associate with it? What is one other thing that you can add about the object (apologies to Valeria if these are not exactly what you said).
Having provided answers to the questions, the partner then tries to orally reconstruct the memory, comparing it to original memory. Obviously a task like this generates a lot of language. In the workshop we were asked what the next step would be, how could we tap into this language. For me the obvious thing would be to record the students as they speak (well, actually to record themselves). There are a number of free apps that can be used for this but my current favourite is recordium, which is available in Itunes.
I prefer it to the soundcloud app (though admittedly that is available on both Itunes and android) as I find it easier to use. Open the app and press record and that's it. The joy, especially when dealing with students' language comes from what can be done after. With a press of a button you or they can leave feedback in the recording.
You have the option to highlight elements of the recording, tag elements (useful for follow up work), insert a picture (a lovely addition to a task like the memory one above) and add notes. Adding the notes, allows the teacher to give feedback, help etc for the student. Simply press the note as per this image and add what you want.
These touches make it a really useful recording tool for students, not only to deal with emerging language but in most ELT contexts such as speaking exam practice, honing a business students presentation and so on. Leaving the notes means they can listen back, read the note and decide how best to correct or home what they said.