Using recorded Skype conversations as assessment tools

I was asked today by Barbara Sawhill to briefly take part in a presentation she's giving with Barbara Ganley on 'Using Skype, Podcasting and Blogging in Foreign Language Teaching'



Sitting here waiting for their Skype call, I decided to prepare myself a little bit and refresh my memory about their work.



As soon as I start looking I'm struck by what I've been missing out on by not blogging much, or taking much notice of the 'edublogosphere' recently. I can't let this happen again, no matter how busy I get.



First, I found a description of the workshop they are giving today:



"Recently, new technologies have distinguished themselves as credible tools that increase students' production and competence in a target language. With this change, a new conversation has begun about the structure of a language class, thinking about moving from a traditional teacher-and-text-centered classroom to a student-centered and possibly even a totally un-centered, textbook-less learning environment. In this workshop, we will explore several new "disruptive technologies" -- blogs, wikis, podcasts, rss feeds and Skype (http://www.skype.com)-- and explore ways these tools can support the objectives of a language curriculum."



This year I've been witness to the efforts that Barbara Sawhill has been making with her Spanish students, as we've been involved in podcast exchanges. Tonight, following links, I've just come across one of the most interesting reflections I've ever seen about using recorded Skype conversations.



Barbara Sawhill talks here, on the Language Lab Unleashed blog, about using recorded Skype calls as assessment tools for language learning.



In particular, she reflects upon students conducting Skype interviews as part of their final projects, and mentions the great value of doing this when students really use these conversations as a form of self-evaluation. She found that many students approached the task trying to produce something they thought Barbara wanted, rather than really reflect upon the conversations they had had. When her students approached the task as more than "just a list of questions that need to be answered", however, as one of Barbara's students (Gigi) did, then something special took place. In the recording, Gig talks to Rita, an EFL teacher in Argentina. She reflects upon the conversation in her blog.



Barbara also mentions the idea of students using these conversations as "snapshots" of what they were able to do at a particular moment, and she hopes some of them at least will be able to listen again in the future, and to be able to assess their progress. This is surely an area that has great potential in language learning.

Comments

  1. I am quite interested in the idea of Skype calls as a language tool and would like to know how to record Skype calls and upload them to a blog. Can you point me in the right direction for tutorials on these two topics?
    Maryanne

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Maryanne

    The first place I'd recommend you go is to the webcast academy

    I did a search there and found a link to the Worldbridges New Media Guides site, with a tutorial on recording telephony software like Skype.

    I hope this is what you're looking for.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Barbara - that's a really useful resource you have there.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This does seem like a great idea doesn't it. I too have been a bit out of the loop for the past 14 weeks (my aggregator tells me I have 3500 unread feeds).

    I am anxious to hear the presentation you open this blog post talking about. The two Barbara's seem to have discovered an application for Skype and skypecasts with much potential.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Joe - nice blog you have there, with links to lots of interesting tools and papers - look forward to checking that out in more detail

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Joe for this rich collection of resources - I look forward to checking them out very soon.

    I've also forwarded yyour comment to our podcasting group, as I think that your suggestions will benefit people there too:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/podcasting_elt/

    Cheers

    Graham

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous5:18 am

    I'm often contact native speakers via skype and saving my conversations with SkypeCallRecorder
    for future analysis.

    ReplyDelete

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