Audacity and ESL Learners

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Permalink Reply by ddeubel on May 27, 2008 at 7:30am

Rebecca,

Audacity is good but I prefer voicethread by far -- for ease of use and appeal to youngsters. See our own at EFL Classroom 2.0 here . Voicethread for $10 gives teachers a great tool with which to inspire their students. They can record, play back and interact around teacher prompts and picture prompts. Even draw! So maybe it is what you are looking for?

We also have a nice directory for EFL / ESL students on our Practice page.

David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on June 3, 2008 at 1:38am

Hi David,

I'll give voicethread a go again - I found it quite tricky myself but that was a while ago. It does seem inspiring the way you describe it. I loved your Mr Bean video on Classroom 2.0 but realise that all YouTube videos are blocked at my college. Is it easy to convert it to TeacherTube (which is not blocked in Sydney)?
I'm also intrigued by the story reading activity you have - with sound, and words being highlighted. I've been looking for something like this (for free if possible!) for years - but with an UK or Australian accent and aimed at adults rather than children. Do you know of anything?

Rebecca.

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Permalink Reply by Petaris on May 27, 2008 at 7:36am

We are using RosettaStone. It is easy to use and seems to work very well. It isn't cheap but it isn't too expensive either. Audacity is a great tool but I am just not sure that it would be the best choice for what you want to do.

- Petaris

"The World is Open. Are You?"

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on June 3, 2008 at 1:23am

I'm intrigued by the Rosetta Stone - can you say more about this? I hestitate to use this, because my students cannot afford to buy anything and moreover, any new software has to go through endless committees to get vetted. Audacity seems to work well everywhere and I've just started to record on it - excellent sound quality. With a bit more tuition, I can grasp this, and so one day, hope to be able to read things out slowly with pauses to allow the students enough time to repeat it themselves - though I still don't know if it's possible for them to record their own voices in between. I think not.

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Permalink Reply by ddeubel on June 3, 2008 at 2:02am

Hi David,

I'll give voicethread a go again - I found it quite tricky myself but that was a while ago. It does seem inspiring the way you describe it. I loved your Mr Bean video on Classroom 2.0 but realise that all YouTube videos are blocked at my college. Is it easy to convert it to TeacherTube (which is not blocked in Sydney)?
I'm also intrigued by the story reading activity you have - with sound, and words being highlighted. I've been looking for something like this (for free if possible!) for years - but with an UK or Australian accent and aimed at adults rather than children. Do you know of anything?

Rebecca - get all the Mr. Bean videos using our A/V player Also in our Share area there are activities for selected ones. All the videos there are downloadable, click the arrow.

We had a discussion here a few weeks back about reading and karaoke......see my youtube channel for this but also much better quality using the original karaoke player. Click Listen on EFL classroom and then Karaoke. There you can download the player and editor and also watch me make a karaoke and see how easy it is. You just need an mp3, words/text and photo(s). Here is an example for an adult audience :)

Hope you find all this....

David

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on June 11, 2008 at 1:52pm

Thankyou for your ideas, David. Really appreciate your feedback. I need to spend a bit of time on this (!).

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Permalink Reply by Adina Sullivan on June 11, 2008 at 9:09am

I started using Audacity for several projects. Sight word lists were recorded and then burned onto CD so students could listen/practice in class and/or at home. I've also used it for students to record themselves for digital storytelling projects (Photostory/MovieMaker). They get a chance to review their recording and record if they choose. Voicethread is great too. We just did't have enough parent permission to use a web based system this last year.

I don't know of a way for students to record themselves on Audacity with a prerecorded piece unless you had them record on a separate track. I don't think they would be able to listen and record at the same time. it would be more of a start/stop/start process.

The idea of Karoake sounds like a great option. I may have to try that.

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Permalink Reply by Rebecca on June 11, 2008 at 1:57pm

Thanks, Adina. I hadn't thought about cutting a CD from Audacity - that makes alot of sense. I find that initially training students with any technology can be fraught - because my students come from backgrounds where they may never have used computers before and they often have learning difficulties, get easily confused (like myself!) and need alot of time to learn new processes. But the more practice the better!

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Permalink Reply by John Plummer on June 11, 2008 at 7:53pm

I haven't used Audacity with my students for recording in class and such but I have used it for recording texts for a private student of mine. I liked it a lot because its easy to use and I could use it to create mp3s which i burned to a cd for my student to take home with him and listen to as he read along with the text. It's something I have been wanting to do with my students for a while now but I haven't had the time or the computer equipment at the school to do this. I've never heard of Rosetta stone, I'll have to check it out :-D

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