CD
1
What is your name?What questions or comments do you have for this presenter?
2
Blanca Romero PinoHello Talip, I really enjoyed your presentation on the affordances of VT to help students improve their pronunciation/oral skills. Although I do not support the view that the goal of learning an L2 is to achieve 'native-like' pronunciation, I understand where that perception comes from, since I was trained under the same paradigm. My question for you is about the teacher's role in these interaction. Did the teacher interact with students? Did he/she monitor students messages and/or provided feedback on students voice messages? How can we assess students initial and final proficiency in terms of pronunciation? What is the teacher's overall (qualitative) assessment of this exercise? Thank you for your insightful and inspiring presentation.
3
Talip GönülalHi Blanca, thanks for the question. Initially, I tried to leave positive and constructive feedback on their responses in order to motivate them to post more voice messages and to keep the flow of interaction on VT. As they got used to the VT exercises, I occasionally left feedback or oral responses but I listened to all student responses and noted down the common pronunciation issues and went over them in the next face-to-face class. There were several other in-class or out-of-class exercises/activities/assignments/projects, so it was not possible to quantitatively measure the impact of VT on students’ pronunciation development. In fact, my primary purpose to use such an asynchronous tool was to help students continue to use English outside the classroom. However, students earned 1 point by leaving at least one oral response and one feedback/comment on their peers’ oral responses. Overall, the use of VT in my classes was mostly fruitful.
4
shahrzad ghobadlouThank you so much for showcasing your student's interaction with Voice thread and also for sharing with us the result with us. I was struck by how student's gained confidence from using this tool and I am curious to know if the same students are feeling more comfortable to use the acquired knowledge outside of the classroom or not. It is important to consider that most of the time, students who don't have access to the native speaker community are feeling more shy to develop the confidence of being autonomous life learners. I'd like to know more about the progress of your students.
5
Blanca Romero PinoHello Talip! Thank you for your prompt response. I really like your approach to using VT for language practice. I think it is completely doable, once the teacher/instructor has provided clear instruction. I will recommend my colleagues in Venezuela to apply this type of activity to our LLs and see what their experience is like.
6
Talip GönülalHi Shahrzad, thanks for the question. Yes, the VT exercises were quite effective especially for the introverted students as they had chances to have rehearsals and re-record their voice messages if they wanted—it’s not the same as speaking in front of their peers in a psychical classroom. So, they began to develop some confidence to speak. However, I would say VT exercises were just like taking baby steps. As they spent time on improving their language skills, their confidence levels also increased accordingly. However, VT tasks per se or any other task types would not be panacea for solving the problem of speaking anxiety or self-confidence—it is a matter of process. Students gradually made great improvements over the year and VT tasks were just effective boosters for some students.
7
Talip GönülalHi Blanca, great to hear that! I hope your colleagues in Venezuela and their students will have nice experiences with VT.
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100