Speaking Skills

Among many tools that we can use in order to develop speaking skills, I chose three:

- Blabberize: turn any photo you want into a talking photo

- Voxopop: record your voice and add pictures

- Present.me: speak while your presentation's being played.

My mates and I designed three different activities that integrate these tools.

1) Use Blabberize

Target: 1st year, high-school

Level: Intermediate

Aim: improve speaking skills, pronunciation, writing and listening.

Activity: "Virtual Show & Tell"

Students choose an objects that's meaningful for them, take a picture of it and upload it. Then, they write a paragraph (or two) from the point of view of the object including information (such as why they think they're important, describe the relationship with their owner and any other thing they want.) After the teacher checks it and gives feedback, students record themselves and upload it in the platform they're using.

Finally, students are told to explore two productions each and report/comment on one or both productions in class.

2) Use Voxopop

Target: 6th form, primary school.

Level: Intermediate

Aim: improve speaking and writing skills

Activity: "Collaborative Story Writing"

The teacher gives each group of students different titles for them to use as triggers (ideally groups of 5.) Each student in the group is supposed to write a part of the story at home (2 paragraphs tops) and bring it to class for the teacher to check. Once checked, the next student takes it home in order to write his/her part, and so on. Error analysis is possible, too. When the whole story is ready, students record it and add pictures chosen by themselves. Finally, they're asked to explore one or two productions and comment on the good things about it/them.

3) Use Present.me

Target: 5th year, high-school.

Level: upper-intermediate.

Aim: improve speaking skills and deliver a presentation.

Activity: "My future."

Students are asked to prepare a presentation regarding their future course of studies using Present.me. The teacher'll give them guidelines as to what should be included. Then, students either upload the presentations on the platform or share it in class.

Below, you can see an example of activity 1. I created it thinking about my brother. Hope you like it!!