Get Students Researching Words and Phrases in a Digital Audio Corpus

This is an amazing resource for finding genuine audio examples of words and phrases in seconds.

FluidDATA is really simple to use and delivers fast results. Simply type in your word or expression and the search engine will produce a list of web-based audio files where the phrase appears.

It will also show you the written context the work appears in.

This is an amazing audio corpus that you and your students can use to study the lexical use of words and phrases as well as variations in pronunciation. Get students to find examples of language points and vocabulary they are studying and deduce meaning from context.

The site also shows you the source of the audio files so this has the added benefit of helping your to find useful open access podcasts on any topic you may be interested in.

FluidDATA is a fantastic free resource for any linguist, teacher or student of English.

You can find 100 + more tools and resources like this in my ebook Digital Tools for Teachers - Second Edition or if you want to train other teachers to use these kinds of tools check out the Teacher Trainers’ Edition.

My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

Improve Students' 'Bottom Up' Listening Skills with Script Transcription

Transcribing audio scripts is a challenging and very useful ‘bottom up’ listening activity which pushes students to accurately identify word boundaries as well as the full range of English sounds and features of connected speech.

http://otranscribe.com/ has a very useful interface which can help students to transcribe any audio or video file. Just add a link to the video or upload ad audio and the file will open in the interface. The file opens to the left of your text area and includes play and pause controls as well as a speed control for speeding up or slowing down the play back.

Once the file is open students can just listen and transcribe the text without any switching of windows, tabs or applications. They can add time stamps to each line to sync with the audio file and there are a number of keyboard shortcuts to make the process more convenient.

Once students have finished they can export the file or save it to their Google Drive and share it with you or their peers for feedback.

OTranscribe makes transcribing much more convenient.

This is a great way to review audio or video content that students have already studied for comprehension purposes.

You can find 100 + more tools and resources like this in my ebook Digital Tools for Teachers - Second Edition or if you want to train other teachers to use these kinds of tools check out the Teacher Trainers’ Edition.

My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

Build Speaking & Pronunciation Tasks into your Moodle Course

SpeechAce is a great Moodle plugin for anyone who wants to build speaking and pronunciation activities into their online course.

The plugin allows you to build tasks and activities into your Moodle course that require a verbal response, these can be listen and answer, listen and repeat, watch multimedia and answer,  and which gives students useful constructive feedback on their pronunciation.

Students simply click to record their answers or input, this can be the answer to a questions or can be based around a text they have read or a recorded model (UK or US accent) they have listened to and tried to imitate.

They then they get a score and an analysis of their answer. They can get word by word feedback on their performance and see which phonemes they produced successfully and which they still need to work on.

Installing the plugin is pretty simple and then you just select it from the main tasks menu whenever you want to add a speaking activity to your course.

If you build it into a tutored course the students scores are recorded in the grade book and teachers can go and listen to their recordings too. This can really make teaching preparation effective in a blended learning course.

Like many teachers and language course designers, I’m usually pretty sceptical about a computers’ ability to evaluate student speaking, especially given the range of variation in native speaker output, but I think SpeechAce does a really good job of getting students to produce language, giving them feedback on their performance and encouraging them to listen and try again. Building this kind of capability into an online language course, especially a MOOC type one that has much less teacher contact, could really help students to stay motivated and engaged for longer.
 

Video demo

If you want to give it a try as a teacher then go to: https://playground.speechace.com/moodle/ where you can get access to the SpeechAce sandpit.

If you want to try it as a student then go to: www.speechace.com/pc and you can try a demo placement test.

I’ve known about SpeechAce for a couple of years now and it’s great to see how it has developed. It isn’t free (there is a free trial), but the company is clearly putting their money into developing a constantly improving product and I think that’s something worth supporting.

You can find 100 + more tools and resources like this in my ebook Digital Tools for Teachers - Second Edition or if you want to train other teachers to use these kinds of tools check out the Teacher Trainers’ Edition.

My Books:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

Use YouTube as a Pronunciation Corpus

This is a marvellous tool that enables you to use YouTube as a form of pronunciation corpus. You can type in a word or phrase to the search engine, and it will find a series of videos where that word or phrase appears along with subtitles.

This is a great way to find examples of words in context and to hear the pronunciation of those words.

You can choose between US, UK and AUS sources and also get a direct link to the part of the video where the word occurred and share it with students. There's even a small tool to slow things down if you feel that helps.

You can use the green buttons to skip forward to the next clip or back to the last one.

This makes it easy to hear lots of examples in context quite quickly. You can even click on the words in the subtitles to get a dictionary definition.

The site works in the browser, so should work across platforms and on most mobile phones and tablets too. There's even a widget that you can embed into your site or blog.

Visit YouGlish.com
This is a great way to get students comparing different accents, as well as finding pronunciation models for words they want to learn and showing the word in context.

You could also use it to focus on homonyms and homographs and see if they can pick out which version of the word appears in the video.

Just as with a normal corpus, it's also great to use to show differences in usage. Compare here the difference uses of operate on and operate in.

YouGlish is a great tool to get students thinking about how words are used in context and how they sound.

Get lesson plans, tech tips and teacher resource books with our Teachers' Classroom App.

 

 

Nik Peachey - Pedagogical Director - PeacheyPublications Ltd

 

Convert Your Chrome Browser into a Language Lab for Speaking Practice

Fluency Tutor is a really interesting concept. It is a Chrome plugin that converts a computer into a kind of language lab.

If you sign up as a teacher you can then assign texts to students and they can record themselves reading the text and send it to you for feedback.

You see all your students’ submissions in the LMS and you can the listen to them and send them feedback.

This is a great way to make reading aloud less stressful and more productive for students. They will have the time to read and understand the text before recording it (there are comprehension questions with each of the prepared texts) and they will have the opportunity to listen to themselves and improve their recording.

This enables you to give students speaking practice for homework and it gives you the opportunity to listen to each individual student and analyse their pronunciation problems.

You do both need to have Google Chrome though and students will need to register with an email address.

I hope you find Fluency Tutor useful. You can find links to many more tools like this and activities for the digital classroom in my ebooks at: http://peacheypublications.com/. All my ebooks are available for iOS and as PDF.

Sign up for my twice monthly free newsletter and get a free copy of Digital Tools for Teachers at: https://tinyletter.com/technogogy/ 

Related links:

• 20 Tech Enhanced Activities for the Language Classroom
• Digital Tools for Teachers
• Thinking Critically through Digital Media
• Exploiting Infographics
• 10 Lessons in Digital Literacy
• Digital Video – A Manual for Language Teachers 

 Best

Nik Peachey

How to Make Your Own Pronunciation Flashcards

The Flashcard Maker from CEO has been around a while, but it is one of those really good free tools that keeps getting better. It enable you to create and print your own flashcards which include text, phonemic script and images that you can type in and add. You can then use these for a range of activities in the classroom.

To create flashcards, the first thing you do is go to: http://www.cambridgeenglishonline.com/Flashcard_maker/ and choose the size of the flashcards you want to create. you can choose from either one A4 size card to 8 cards per A4 sheet.
Next, you can either draw your own image or select one from the image library.
To add an image you just click on the name of the image you want from the image library and click 'Apply' and it appears on the flashcard.

Next you can add your text and lastly, use the small phonemic typewriter to add the symbols.

Then all you have to do is click on print and you have your flashcard with phonemic script.

This is a great tool to use with EFL and ESL students.

• You can create simple flashcards with images and phonemic script of the nouns.
• You can get the students to create the flash cards themselves, as the phonemic typewriter also has sound so they can hear the phonemes as they type them.
• You can create some cards with just images, some with just word and some with just script and create a great matching activity.
• You can create flashcards with pronunciation mistakes and see if the students can spot them. You can create flashcards with one image and two different phonemic spellings and see if students can say the correct one.

If you really like this and think it's useful, there is even a version for iPad / iPhone which has lots of activities built in along with the ability for students to record and compare their own audio of their pronunciation. The app version isn't free though I'm afraid, but it is quite cheap at £1.79 in the UK. You can some screen shots here.

Hope you enjoy this and make some useful flashcards.

Here you can find more online pronunciation activities for EFL students

Related links:

• Text to Speech for EFL ESL Materials
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• AudioBoo to Posterous: Audio Podcasting from the Classroom
• iPad Apps for English Language Teachers
• Make Quick Pronunciation Activities
• Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage
• Dictation goes Web 2.0

Best

Nik Peachey

Make Quick Pronunciation Activities

Text2Phonetics is a very handy site if you like to use phonemic script with your students. It can take a lot of the hard work out of transcribing text to phonetic symbols. You just paste in a short piece of text, click a button, and it does it for you.

You can then copy and paste the text into websites or documents, like the text below which I copied from Wikipedia. Here you can see how well it transcribes.
This was done using the 'RP' setting.

• | fəʊˈnɒlədʒi z ðə ˌsɪstəˈmætɪk juːz əv saʊnd tə ɪnˈkəʊd ˈmiːnɪŋ ɪn ˈeni ˈspəʊkən ˈhjuːmən ˈlæŋɡwɪdʒ | ɔː ðə fiːld əv lɪŋˈɡwɪstɪks ˈstʌdɪɪŋ ðɪs juːz |
• Phonology is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.

This looks like a really great tool to help prepare materials for students or to get students using for themselves.

Here's a few ways you might use it.

• Get students to type example sentences using new vocabulary words and convert them to script.
• Produce some sample sentences in script for your students to decode and read.
• Produce some examples of script and the original text and add some pronunciation errors to the script and see if they can spot the errors.
• Get students to translate short texts or sentences to script and then use the site to compare and check their own transcriptions.
• Create transcribed versions of conversations or dialogue and get students to draw on the intonation patterns to show where the intonation rises or falls. You could actually use short exerts from film or TV scripts to do this and then find the clip on YouTube so they can listen to hear the intonation. Drew's Script-O-Rama is a good place to find TV scripts.

If you want to transcribe longer texts then you can also download a desktop edition, but this only runs on PC, so I haven't tried it yet. The tool even offers a degree of customization so you can remove or include different features.
I hope you find Text2Phonetics useful and soon have your students producing perfect 'RP' accents.

Here you an find more web based activities for pronunciation.

Related links:

• Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage
• Dictation goes Web 2.0
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• Phonology can be fun and free
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Artificial Intelligence Chat bots and EFL ESL
• Listen and Write the News
• Listen to and Download Texts
• Subtitling your video clips

Best

Nik Peachey

A Database of Film Scripts

Something that's always handy to have as either reading materials, support for video lessons or for drama projects, is access to up to date film scripts, so The Internet Movie Script Database is a great one to keep in your bookmarks.


It has quite a few up-to-date movies that are reasonably easy to access. You can search for a particular name or browse by genre or by alphabetical listing.

There's a landing page with a few ads on before you get to the actual script link, but one you get to the script it's reasonably easy to print or copy for you students.


As I said, there are lots of ways you can use these scripts:

• Get students to learn and act them out
• get students to read parts of the script and try to imaging the way the actor would say the lines (what kinds of emotions they would express through the words etc) then watch the films and compare.
  
• Get students to watch the film and follow + analyse language
• Get students to listen and mark on any features of pronunciation
• Get students to listen the film and try to imitate pronunciation and record themselves
• Use small parts as reading activities
• You could cut and paste the script into something like CuePrompter and get them to read lines from it that way.
  

Scripts like this add a new dimension to reading activities because they use spoken language and screen / stage direction that push students to imagine and visualise how things would happen and be communicated visually on film.

I hope you and your students enjoy them. Here you can find activities for exploiting movies

Related links:

• Drama project tools
• Subtitling your video clips
• Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
• Using Product Reviews
• Free Educational TV Channels
• Open source video animation
• News Videos for EFL ESL Materials Design
• Things You Can Do With Your WebCam 1
• Exploiting a Video Viral
• Lesson plan Top 10 Cartoons for Children’s Rights

Best

Nik Peachey

Adding Phonetic Symbols to a Webpage

TypeIt.org is a handy tool that allows you to add phonetic symbols to a webpage. It doesn't just have the ones for English, but has a few other languages too. Seems like you just type in the consonants from the keyboard and click on the additional symbols to add them. Then just cut and paste the script into your page.


I was tempted to write a little bit and paste it in here as an example, but I wəz əfreɪd aɪd gedɪt rɒŋ!

Hope you find TypeIt.org useful for adding phonemic script to your online and offline work.

Here you can find Activities to Develop Pronunciation.

Related links:

• Dictation goes Web 2.0
• Pronunciation goes 2.0
• Phonology can be fun and free
• Karaoke with a Social Network
• Artificial Intelligence Chat bots and EFL ESL
• Listen and Write the News
• Listen to and Download Texts
• Subtitling your video clips

Best

Nik Peachey

Another Great New Karaoke Site

Getting ESL EFL students singing songs is a great way to improve their pronunciation, so here's another great karaoke site (the 3rd in a month) that has been brought to my attention.

This one is called Karaoke Party and is a little different, for a couple of reasons, the main one being that if you register, you can actually get a score for your singing when you hit the right notes.

This could make the whole activity more motivating for learners as the site is giving them some feedback on their performance. If you got a whole class logged in they could learn their songs at home and compete for the highest score.

I also like that the site has embedded YouTube videos of the original singers for many of the songs, so students can listen to the original and look at the lyrics ( They usually appear under the video clip) before they try to sing themselves.

The site doesn't have servers available in every country yet, but even if you can't register and get a score the lyrics, video and audio to sing along with are still available.

So, no more excuses. Get singing!

Related postings:
Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
Karaoke with a Social Network
Great New Karaoke Site

Best

Nik Peachey

Great New Karaoke Site

I was really pleased to be offered a sneak preview of the fantastic new Lucky Voice Karaoke website which is still in private beta.

Karaoke can be really motivating for some students and as we all know, song is a great way to improve our EFL / ESL students' pronunciation.

The site itself has a really easy to use interface. Once you select a song to sing along with it comes up in a big pop up window which you could display full screen on an interactive whiteboard if you are brave enough to work with a whole class on a song. The words of the song change colour as you should sing them.

You get a bit of help on the chorus, when the original singers join in. If you are using this with students it might be a good idea to play the complete song by the original singer before starting to get them to work on the songs on the site. That way they'll get a better sense of the timing and when to start singing.

You can find more ideas for using karaoke with EFL / ESL students on my Learning Technology blog posted under the title of 'Karaoke with a Social Network'

The selection of songs is also quite broad with quite a lot of up to date songs as well as some older classics. They also have some ready created playlists which are quite handy.

This will certainly be a useful site once it goes public and is one of the best designed Karaoke sites I've seen.

I hope you and your students are able to enjoy it soon.

Related postings:
Transcribed Videos for EFL ESL
Karaoke with a Social Network

Best

Nik Peachey