Comprehensible output through digital speaking projects

• Alison Yang
• Posted at 3:19 pm on Tue, Nov 22, 2011

There are usually some parents who come and see me in the beginning of the school year and request their child to be placed in advanced Mandarin class. Why? Because their child has been learning Mandarin for several years. I did oral assessments with them to begin with and many of them can’t even answer me simple questions regarding personal information.  Students usually told me that they have learned how to read and write, but they can’t really speak! 
It is not uncommon that many students who have learned a second language at school can’t utter a word or have no confidence interacting with native speakers in spontaneous situations. If the objective is for students to develop core competencies in all aspects of language skills, shall we ask ourselves, as teachers, have we done enough to help our students to develop oral language skills?
To this end, effective language teachers create opportunities for students to make the best use of the second language both inside and outside of the classrooms. The language learning process is similar to when babies or toddlers acquire their first languages. First, we provide comprehensible input, and then we interact with them in contexts and finally, they are able to produce the language for authentic communication.  The same language acquisition process should be applied in our foreign language classrooms, including producing comprehensible output.  
With the advent of technology, teachers and students are provided with ample opportunities for oral language practice without spending a cent. I would like to share a couple of web 2.0 tools that my students use to develop their oral language proficiency.

• Voicethread: audio and video discussions, picture talks, responses to open-ended questions, making sentences based on given phrases, listening to other people to complete a survey

•  Voki: introduce self (Students can also embed this in their learning portfolio.), give one minute talk about a topic, storytelling

•  Posterous: reading aloud projects, responses to reading passages, sharing opinions about a topics

•  Screencast-O-Matic: practice presenting Power Point presentations, making video projects collaboratively, practice delivering a speech   

•  Lingua Swap: practice the language they are learning at school with a native speaker of their own age (They don’t have Mandarin language support yet, but if you are teaching Spanish, French or German, it’s worth of checking it out.) 

If your students have iDevices, such as iPad, iPod or iPhone, they can also down free programs, such as Puppet Pals, Talking Tom Cat, Audioboo for interesting digital speaking projects.
If you are interested in finding out more how to use web 2.0 tools to help developing students oral language skills, you can find more information here: http://www.slideshare.net/CatherineRitz/digital-speaking

Alison Yang
IB Mandarin Teacher
KIS International School