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November 7, 2009

The joy of recording!

This simple device is becoming a "staple" in my lessons. I plug it to my computer, open Audacity (a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds) and I start recording my students. they usually have a conversation with a partner or they do a little presentation about themselves. They love it because for some reason they love listening to their own voice. So the magic happens: once they have recorded themselves, they listen to their performance and most of the time they want to do it again
because they have spotted a pronunciation mistake or a grammatical error! I mean, how often do you hear students wanting to repeat themselves when they speak in another language??? The recording exercise allows this magical phenomenon to happen! And even better, students love it when they know their recordings will be embedded on the school blog and therefore available for the world to listen to.

This week I have decided to try to use it as often as I can in an attempt to make my students visit the blog and leave comments. I have noticed they do visit the blog but they have not yet stepped into the commenting phase. Do you have any suggestions to make students comment on a blog?

If you haven't tried this yet, please do. You can find microphones at a very affordable price and they are so easy to use with Audacity. You can then save your recordings as .wav or.mp3 files and easily embed them onto your blog or website. You will see your students being motivated to SPEAK ;)

What about you? what do you do to make your students speak in another language?

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Filed under  //   Audacity   blog   device   devices   embed   microphone   motivate   mp3   record   recording   speaking   students   voice   wav   web tool   websites  

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July 3, 2009

Resources for the independent Spanish learner

I found this fab quote today:

"A few of my keener students have asked me to give them with advice and hints to help them keep their Spanish going over the summer, in anticipation of next academic year. Earlier today, over at http://www.asisehace.net/blog, I provided them with a list of websites containing audio and video resources that will help them keep their Spanish ticking over and, who knows? They might even learn one or two new things. The list is copied below:..."
from http://www.boxoftricks.net/?p=1187
You should read the whole article.

What about you? Do you have a list of fun and engaging resources to learn a language?

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Filed under  //   blog   engage   fun   independent   learn   learning   pupils   resources   Spanish   students   teaching   tools   web 2.0   websites  

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