Task 9: Create a Video Dictation Activity

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer Teacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

Task 9: Create a video dictation activity for your students In this task you will use a free video communication tool to create a video dictation activity for your students. The activity will help your students to develop both their reading and listening skills, as well as giving them the opportunity to develop some confidence using English in front of a webcam.

You will use a free tool called http://mailvu.com/ and you will need to have a computer with a Webcam attached.

Procedure The first step is to go to the MailVU website at: http://mailvu.com/. You don’t need to register or pay anything, the service is free.

Now you are almost ready to create your first video message. What you may see when you use the service is a small message asking you to allow access to your camera and microphone. This is a simple message from the ‘Flash’ plugin that the application uses to record your voice and video, so don’t worry, just click on ‘Allow’.

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Contact: NikPeachey@mac.com

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer Teacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

Once you click on allow you will see your self in the video window. If you don’t, click on the small webcam image below the video and select your webcam from the drop down list. You may have to do the same thing with your microphone.

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Contact: NikPeachey@mac.com

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer Teacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

Next simply click on the ‘Record’ button above the video image and start talking. Use this first attempt as a practice so just say anything so you can check that everything is working.

Once you have finished speaking press the Record button again to stop the recording. Then press the Play button to watch and listen to your video.

If both the sound and the image are okay, you are ready to record your dictation. If there is any problem, check again that you have the correct camera and microphone selected.

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Contact: NikPeachey@mac.com

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer Teacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

You should now be ready to record your dictation. I suggest for the first one you could use the text below as it has most of the sounds of English in it. (This text was taken from ‘The Speech Accent Archive’) Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

Practice saying it a few times before you record it or if you prefer, use a text of your own.

When you are ready, click on the green record button and start speaking.

Don’t worry too much if you make mistakes, you can review your work and try again as many times as you like to get it right.

Click the ‘Play’ button to watch your recording. If you are not happy with it you can record it again by clicking on the green record button again.

If you like your recording then you are ready to share it with your students. Before you do this select the number of days you want the video to be available. If you are setting this as a homework task you can set the limit quite short so that the students have to do the task on time. You also need to set the number of times the video can be seen. Be sure to set enough times so that all your students can watch it a few times. (Multiply the number of students by the number of time you want them to watch.)

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Contact: NikPeachey@mac.com

Nik Peachey | Learning Technology Consultant, Writer, Trainer Teacher Development: http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

Next click on ‘Send Video Mail’. You can then add the email addresses of your students and ask to be notified each time the video is viewed.

You should also add a message with your instructions in. Here are the instructions: “Watch this video and write down what you hear. Then reply to the video and read out the text that you wrote. Send the video back to me.”

So the students will get listening practice as they listen to your recording of the text and speaking practice when they reply.

You will then be able to listen to their videos and assess their pronunciation.

Follow up • Now think about the process, look at the follow up tasks and write about them in the Penzu journal that you created in Task 1.

• Think about other video messages you could send to your students or other activities you could use this for.

• Here you can find an article with 20 Webcam activities for students: 20 WebCam Activities for EFL ESL Students. Have a look at them and think about how they could be used with MailVU http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2009/07/20-webcam-activities-for-efl-esl.html © Nik Peachey

Contact: NikPeachey@mac.com