Thomas' Work Space

1. This exam file has been authored with the Sanako Study 1200 TBA:authoring tool. It is displayed from  the Sanako tutor application:
   1. images on a projection screen connected to the teacher computer,
   2. aural portion through the tutor-controlled Sanako student player and headsets. 
2. To protect the integrity and allow for reuse of the exam, only the initial instruction, example and collection of the results of an exam with visual cues are shown in this screencast.

1. Yay! You can find the assignment right on your course home page: 
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3. Provided you do not miss the deadline – visit your calendar, better load your deadlines into NINERMAIL at term start
4. Come to the LRC to record your Moodle video assignment and practice speaking with our webcams.

Last week, I noticed this student in the LRC working on a speaking assignment in her SLA class. First, she wrote a draft of her presentation. She then had the Deskbot TTS wizard (in the lower right of her screen) read out the draft to her. She recorded her version, modeling after the Deskbot’s pronunciation. Then she had the Deskbot read out the draft again, to compare with her own recording.

Look for the little guy in the lower right corner of the screen with the cartoon bubble over his head.

I favor the use of the Deskbot TTS (a Windows XP technology) as an easily accessible speaking dictionary, including during face-to-face teaching, when students may otherwise be too shy to make an utterance because they are not sure about the pronunciation of a single word, or even ask the teacher to pronounce it for them. Prosodically, the deskbot TTS leaves many things to be desired. Let’s hope that Windows 7 will enable us to set up more advanced TTS support in the LRC.

1. Study 1200 will automatically save the exam recordings of each of your students under a distinct name (you can choose student email name or seat number) in a location which you can access from your office desktop:
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3. You can load this recordings in Audacity to grade them, including skipping past the questions and increasing the play speed, but not the pitch, and easy comparison of students like in the picture below:
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This 5-minute video shows how an actual oral exam in interpreting from French to English, using the software instructions from Part I.

Audio Source is a prerecorded mp3 file. Other sources are also possible, including live teacher microphone

Students speak during hardcoded pauses after listening to program track – insert recording without hardcoded pauses is also possible.

Clear structuring of the exam is recommended for first-timers, including adding clear audio signals in the program track when to speak and stop.

Content

0:00

teacher explains exam format (structure of audio with gaps for students to respond (here interpreting) and cue when to begin / end responding)

0:55

explanation of Sanako player volume control

1:35

students can’t believe their luck: “it is going to record automatically?” – “you do not have to do anything!” Just language (that’s the point, isn’t it?)

2:08

audio started

2:30

beep – students speak  (cut to abridge)

2:40

beep – end of student response  – beginning teacher track

3:32

beep – end of student response

4:10

beep – end of student response  – beginning teacher track

4:50

end (file collection is not show, teacher only needs to press in activity pane button “End”  and in folder name dialogue button “OK”)