Thomas' Work Space

1. View screens (best viewed side by side, but note that left and right screen are not synchronized):
   1. for full slide show (note the included short links for convenient further reading), left screen
   2. for Sanako interface and full audio track, right screen.
2. Table of contents:
   1. Overview of a Sanako Oral Exam
   2. Examples of Exam teachers’ exam question recordings
   3. Example of a Sanako Exam
   4. Loop induction
   1. creating an exam question recording
   2. by taking a Sanako exam as a student
   5. Step-by-Step of administering a Sanako oral exam
   6. Grading Sanako oral exam student files
      1. Sanako voice insert for
         1. facilitating recording oral assignments for student without hard-coded pauses
         2. commenting on student responses during grading
   7. Sanako authoring tool for providing visual on top of aural cues to students
3. 

1. Symptom: Audacity installation seems to complete without error, but attempting to start Audacity at the end of the installation process results in an error about bad environment with the above error code.
2. For your reference: It is has been the missing Visual C++ redistributable installation here in the past on staff computers.
3. Solution: Download and install the redistributable, then try restarting Audacity: It should start now.

A 70-sec screencast:.

1. All other things equal (given a limited amount of time), teachers can provide more and better corrective feedback on student oral proficiency recordings if, during their grading, they could easily insert their own oral comments into the students’ recordings (delivered as MP3 files to teachers’ desktops after Sanako oral exams).
2. Both the Sanako Tutor and Student Player have a voice insert mode that is much easier and quicker to use than (albeit not free as) editing the student audio in Audacity (which we still recommend for bare-bone viewing/listening because of Audacity’s capability of loading and displaying multiple tracks simultaneously).
3. Fortunately, Sanako tutor/student player are available on the teacher/student station PCs in the LRC (the latter’s insert function is available when the PC connected to the running Sanako Tutor on the teacher station).
4. How easy and fast is it to use this? As you can see in this demo screencast on how to use Sanako voice insert to add spoken comments into your students’ Sanako oral exams, voice insert only requires:
1.  a click on the voice insert button in the center, whenever a user wants to speak during listening,
2. and, from the top left menu, a “file”/ “save as” at the end.
5. In a next step – not only during the grading process –, how easy is it to distribute student recordings made with Sanako to students? That is TBA:a different story.

1. The first screencast example uses insert tones and a gut amount of pause, for an interpreting exercise, into an authentic German political speech
   1. 1:00 search for a break (button: play/stop  - pause prevents edits)
   2. 1:05 move the cursor to the break (mouse left-click on timeline)
   3. 1:20 insert a pause (menu:Generate / Silence )
   4. 1:25 zoom in (button:magnifying glass, CTRL + mouse scroll wheel)
   5. 1:45 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise), change the duration
   6. 2:10 do not replace the selection
   7. 2:20 use undo, just like in MS-word and other programs
   8. 2:30 move the cursor to the start of the selection (mouse left-click on timeline)
   9. 2:40 generate a tone (menu:Generate / Noise)
   10. don’t forget to review results before distributing to students
2. the second screencast example, of post-editing a questions/response exercise in ESL, takes the amount of pause inserted from the recorded teacher instruction for the student, and uses copy/paste to speed things up even more.
3. You can also only insert tones and not pauses, as in the 3rd screencast, and allow the students flexible pause lengths, if you can rely on the Sanako Student recorder Voice insert. Or if you must, let students use audacity for recording also, and have them learn how to move the recording cursor around manually, and throw away the source track.

1. When you initially createdyour single file upload assignment, there were no student submissions:
2. Once there are, the link in the upper right of the assignment will tell you and take you right to the gradebook:
3. Here you have an (1) overview who has submitted, and can click (2) to grade;   
4. In the grading dialogue, you can (1) download and open the file submission (see techniques of grading student audio submissions with Audacity), (2) write comments as you assess the file, (3) assign a final grade and (4) save and move on to the next submission (fastest, when you do batch grading, the notify student of your grading feedback is still useful under these circumstances, but even more so when you your self asked to be notified by email of student submissions as they come in: faster feedback)
5. 

1. For a cut-and-dry recording session, the LRC has a simple instruction on
   1. Recording_an_MP3_Audio_File_Using_Audacity_in_the_LRC here.
   2. Uploading an mp3 recording into a Moodle Forum here.
2. For more advanced editing with Audacity, I have a detailed screencast here.

1. Sometimes teachers ask about support for voice recognition in the LRC. The term voice recognition or speech recognition (the former appears to be analogous to face recognition in authentication and other security contexts?) is usually reserved for software that can transcribe your voice into text – still no free option for this, AFAIK. Dragon naturally speaking is the oft recommended market leader outside of education (and within, Auralog Tell me more, see below).
2. Often times, what is actually desired is a digital audio recorder with voice graph, ideally a dual track recorder.
1. In the LRC student computers, we have for exactly this purpose a digital audio recorder as part of the SANAKO Study 1200 language learning system
1. It features a dual track recorder (allows to listen to teacher track which can be a prerecorded model to imitate on the left channel while recording the student track on the right channel of a stereo track) with a voice graph: . See this dual-track-voice-graph screencast demo from the vendor and also our student cheat sheet from the vendor documentation.
2. The Sanako is available in the LRC, as well as in many other educational institutions around the world, but neither free nor web-based (although a web-based version seems to be in the works). It currently requires MS-Windows to run.
2. A popular and free audio editor (but not an SLA – specific application, let alone geared towards model imitation; also, for all practical ends and purposes,  requires an extra download and installations of an MP3 encoder to be able to save recordings as compressed MP3) is Audacity. To use for model imitation exercises,
1. the student can open a model track (mp3 recommended)
2. and manage within the program the imitation portion, using the voice graph:
3. then export  back out as mp3,
1. either her responses individually (see my demo screencast, requires Windows Media Player on Windows, which actually shows a question/response rather than a model imitation, but same principle),
2. or, by deleting the model track, the response parts mixed down to one track,
3. or also, if, like in my demo screencast, the timeline sequence of model (with pauses) and responses is carefully managed (so that model and imitation do not overlap), mixed down to one track.
3. In one language program, I have worked extensively with Auralog Tell me more
1. which was (not exclusively, but arguably too much) based on this pedagogic concept of having students compare the voice graph of their imitation with the model voice graph (while it do did not allow for teachers to upload their own content, and was certainly not free).
2. To my knowledge, Auralog Tell me more does not allow for adding teacher-produced content as models. 
3. I did like the self-reflective and repetitive practice element. However, I found  that students – apart from intonation and (not useful for not pitch based languages) pitch -, did not benefit as much as one might have expected from viewing the voice graph, indeed tended to get overwhelmed, even confused by the raw voice information in  such a voice graph.
4. And automated scoring of pronunciation (or speech recognition” – not free form, but on a level that has been commoditized in operating systems like Windows 7, the level of voice-directed selection between a limited set of different options, like menu options, and in the case of Auralog, choosing between different response options) seemed iffy and less than transparent in Auralog Tell me more, even though this is  their primary selling point. E.g. when I made deliberate gross mistakes, the program seemed to change its standards and wave me through ( English pronunciation example; also observed by me when testing Auralog with East Asian speakers of English).
3. A voice graph  is not the same as a more abstract phonetic transcription (although I do not know whether language learners can be trained in phonetic symbol sets like the IPA).  There are now experimental  programs that can automate the transcription of text into phonetic symbol sets for e.g. Portuguese or Spanish. Maybe you will find that practice with recording and a phonetic transcription of the recorded text is more useful for your students’ pronunciation practice than a fancy voice graph.

1. Moodle:
   1. I proposed for installing one of the free audio recorder plug-ins into our Moodle, but we are not there yet.
   2. However, we do have a new video recording assignment (which is based on Kaltura).
      1. Format: free form, according to your written instructions in the assignment. Students can review and repeat the recording as often as they wish.
      2. The video overhead is minimal since it is streamed, and video is better for authentic language assessments – unless you specifically prepare your students for phone interviews: then just have students step out of the viewing angle of the webcam).
      3. thanks to Moodle, the familiar interface and the underlying LMS support infrastructure, it is easy
         1. for the teacher
            1. to create and assign a video-assignment
            2. to grade it from the gradebook
         2. for the students to take it and submit it.
      4. LRC Support:
      1. Since our PCs have no built-in or added webcam (proposed), we can currently only use our 5 iMacs for Moodle video assignments. Since the MACs do not have headsets (but built-in microphones), the audio quality is not as good as on the PCs. Since 5 seats are not sufficient for class-size activities/exams, it is best to use this as a homework assignment  
      2. I list all necessary steps for a video assignment
         1. here for teachers
         2. here for students.
         3. all my Kaltura posts
      3. Additional support is available through the campus Moodle support team.
2. Sanako
   1. Sources

      1. Dual-track comparative recorder:

         1. the teacher can prepare an input track (or provide one live. Preparing is easy, and worth your while, since easily reusable. I can help you)).
         2. the students records on her own track

      2. Pair  and group recording:

         1. Sanako makes it easy to pair or form groups of students and to record free-form conversations.
         2. These recordings can be either controlled remotely by the teacher or locally by the user
   2. Control
      1. Remote-controlled recording under exam conditions,
         1. responding to a listening cue within a preset (or live) pause in the teacher track
            1. model&imitation:  for phonetics and pronunciation exercises,
            2. question&response for a wide variety of activities as commonly used in SLA textbooks and classroom, including practicing grammar structures or vocabulary recently
            3. question&response&model response: the teacher can also include after the pause in the teacher track a model answer for the students to compare their own output to.
         2. automatically saved with student names to be accessed from the teacher office desktop
         3. easy comparative grading using Audacity (see below)
   3. User-controlled recording is also possible, using the student recorder in manual operation mode
      1. which has more language learner features (bookmarks, voice graph, dual band recording), and  a simpler  interface than a full blown audio editor like Audacity (see below).
      2. The task how to save and sent the assignment to the teacher is here left to the user.
   4. LRC support:
   1. I can help you
      1. creating an audio recording with your content and speaking cues and pauses – using Audacity (see below)
      2. conducting the remote-controlled exam
   2. Up to 20 seats can take an oral exam simultaneously, until we get more Sanako licenses. However, we  found a way to split classes into 2 halves and have consecutive exams (we can play audio on the other students’ headsets to provide for exam conditions). The LRC main classroom is equipped with 30 seats for 2 consecutive exams with Sanako headsets.
3. Voicethread is a popular online recorder, especially  for educational institutions that have no onsite support.
   1. Visual and audio cues can be provided by the teacher.
   2. Pairing of students has been attempted via sharing and responding/commenting to the partner’s submission. This is not a realistic conversation.
   3. Recordings are stored in the cloud.
   4. There is no integration with the SIS (accounts – getting students set up with accounts that can communicate back with the teacher is a challenge) and LMS (the Moodle integration is superficial). 
   5. Voicethread is not free. The ELTI, however, has a subscription. LCS does not.
   6. LRC Support:
      1. We support Voicethread exercises with new and improved headsets.
      2. Help is available through the vendor.
4. Audacity:
   1. for teachers and LRC staff and other language professionals:
      1. best free audio editor, also good for comparative grading. I routinely make my audio exam recordings with Audacity.
      2. LRC support: I have tips and tricks how you can use it in your teaching preparation and grading.
   2. for language learners: not the recommended option, since Audacity has not a feature set geared towards language learning nor support for language assessment workflows:  
      1. Language learners do no need an audio editor for speaking exercises, they need a recorder. If you are a language learner, it is not pedagogical to be able to technically edit and refine your audio recording. Rather rehearse, reflect on and repeat your audio recording, until you are happy with your language output.
      2. Audacity is too technical: It involves too many steps, options and settings for the students to record, save, export and name the audio and to get it to the teacher, and (if it is not uploaded into a Moodle assignment, which could then be a Kaltura  assignment anyway, see above), too tedious for the teacher to manage and grade files.

      3. LRC Support:

         1. If your students are technically inclined, we do have Audacity installed in the LRC.
         2. Your students should not find it difficult to read the documentation. Here are my posts on Audacity.

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:
2. 
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:
4.