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Digital Voices Across the Curriculum
Background to the project
Project descriptions (2005)
Key findings
Further information
Digital voices across the curriculum is an initiative from CILT, the National Centre for Languages, in collaboration with the BBC, to promote innovation in language teaching. Using DfES funding for research and development in Language Colleges, the project was set up to explore the potential of digital audio for cross-curricular work.
Pupils were taught to create and edit digital audio recordings of themselves speaking the target language, working on cross-curricular topics falling outside the MFL Scheme of Work. Teachers from other curriculum areas such as Business Studies, Geography and Music worked with their MFL colleagues to share ideas and teaching approaches.
Background to the project
The initiative was launched with a two-day residential course in January 2005, followed by a dissemination conference in April 2005. 18 teachers from 9 Language Colleges were accepted onto the project.
Day 1 at CILT focuses on existing practice in the use of digital audio in MFL and Content and Language Integrated Learning. As keynote speaker, Terry Cooper, CILT Associate Trainer, introduces ideas for working with audio in a variety of contexts, focusing on the facility for rerecording and creative editing. A number of practising MFL teachers also talk through their developing experiences with the technology, accompanied by colleagues who took part in the CLIL project and are actually involved in teaching other subjects through a target language.
On Day 2 at the BBC 21CC (21st Century Classroom) centre in central London, the teachers focus on practical interviewing, recording and editing skills, through the development of a short vox-pop style radio programme.
Throughout the in-school development period, participating teachers complete a log to record progress and keep in touch with the team at CILT, who visit each of the schools during the project. Day 3 gives schools an opportunity to talk about progress so far with project colleagues and share ideas and solutions.
Project
descriptions (2005)
Frederick Gough School
This project was undertaken with the Business Studies and ICT teacher
and focused on the appeal of the town of Scunthorpe to businesses moving
into the area. The pupils also used the project to investigate the attitudes
of local people about the need for foreign language skills. 22 pupils
from a mixed ability Russian Year 10 GCSE class also studying Business
Spanish took part, taking an afternoon off-timetable to go onto the streets
of Scunthorpe to conduct a survey. They took photographs of the town and
interviewed local people in English and then collated results back at
school ready for class discussion. Pupils then worked in groups to summarise
and translate survey results into Spanish, creating slideshows in PowerPoint
of digital images with an audio commentary in the target language recorded
by pupils. The school plans to share outcomes with the local newspaper
and set up a similar project next year.
Greenbank High School
Building on existing CLIP work, a Year 9 mixed ability class of 30 girls worked on a Geography project through the medium of French. After whole-class discussion of aspects of Normandy such as the climate, industry and history in the target language, the girls worked in groups to research different areas of France on the Internet. They gathered content for PowerPoint presentations, writing text and recording audio files for each slide. They edited the voice recordings using Audacity software and used images sourced on the Internet. Each group then presented their work to the class to be assessed by their peers, using criteria based on NC levels in both MFL and Geography put together by the teachers. These criteria were previously agreed by the class, using a sorting exercise to put them in rank order and highlighting the key developments at each level. Both teachers reported increased confidence and improved pronunciation and reading, writing and listening skills as a result of the project. In future, it is intended to create recordings of the FLA saying key vocabulary, to facilitate more independent and efficient pronunciation practice and review.
Kings Norton Girls School
This French and Geography project aimed to create a resource presenting Birmingham as a destination for French tourists. A Year 10 lower ability French group was chosen, none of whom are studying KS4 Geography. The group visited the city centre and used mini disk recorders to record people on the street giving opinions of Birmingham (in English). They also took photos of city buildings using digital cameras, which were supplemented with images sourced on the Internet. Similar recordings were made around school. Statements were translated into French back in the classroom and recorded using a microphone plugged into the computer, to be edited using Audacity. These photos, text and audio files were then combined into individual PowerPoint presentations and presented to the class. They voted on the best presentation for submission as part of the school’s Comenius Project. Teachers reported significant improvements in motivation and class dynamics, as well as in confidence and spoken language skills and a Radio Club is now being set up for Year 9.
Lincoln Christ’s Hospital School
This collaboration between the MFL and ICT departments saw a Year 8 mixed ability class working on the topic of school to create multimedia web pages for the school website. Pupils decided to interview teachers of other subjects, which meant the pupils had to teach them the necessary phrases in French first. They also planned that one page would be a clickable map of the school, with audio files explaining each room. The web pages introducing the school to an outside audience were created in Word as .html files. Teachers reported that the pupils were motivated by the range of practical activities the project involved and fell into different roles within their groups. They worked hard to make the French accurate and well-pronounced and learned new sound editing skills. The school now has a real variety of content and media types to publish on the website, which could also be used as a teaching resource in the future.
Park View Academy
This project involved a Year 8 French top set and brought the MFL and Drama departments together. With a focus on present, past and future tenses and adjectives in the context of TV programmes, the drama teacher assisted in the development of game and role-play activities to promote pupils’ self-expression, using a model interview dialogue. The pupils then progressed to personalising the own role-play script in pairs, which they recorded and rerecorded using a mini-disk player and microphone. They then performed their role-plays in front of the class, using physical expression to support meaning. Still photographs were taken of the pupils in action. They showed significant improvements in confidence in speaking and writing skills, as well as pronunciation and fluency thanks to improved tone and gesture. The next step is to create PowerPoint presentations, combining photos of the pupils, audio clips of dialogue and written text. These will be displayed on screens in the school auditorium for special events.
Sir Bernard Lovell School
This “Our Community” project brought together the MFL and Humanities departments in creating a digital brochure on Bristol for German tourists. A Year 7, mixed ability class worked on the topics of town and home area in MFL lessons, with input on Bristol’s history from the Humanities teacher. Pupils worked individually or in pairs to write text and audio script for their PowerPoint presentation, with both English and German commentary. Sound Studio software was initially used on the Mac computers at school to record and edit the audio clips. As well as increased pupil motivation, teachers reported evidence of repeated re-recording to perfect pronunciation quality and improved confidence in speaking. It is intended to extend this type of project to Year 8 MFL groups next year and to introduce voice recording to the forthcoming whole-school Integrated Curriculum project.
South Wolds Community School
This collaboration with the English department encouraged pupils and staff to express their opinions of the school and subjects studied in as many languages as possible. A group of five Year 10 pupils worked off-timetable for two three-hour sessions. They travelled around school to gather audio footage, using mini-disk recorders and microphones, and to take digital photos. Both one-word answers and longer recordings were gathered, including their own voices. They even recorded pupils showing off their knowledge in languages they had just started to learn. They then used Audacity software to edit this material featuring eight different languages. This commentary was added to a PowerPoint presentation of digital photos, for use in the school lobby to promote MFL in the school. The school hopes to extend the use of digital audio to both MFL and English lessons in the future.
St Aidan’s RC School and Language College
This project involved Year 9 mixed ability pupils from different French groups working with MFL and Music teachers during Music lessons. Pupils were asked to think about family arguments and to write a draft script in English, which they then translated into French. Music software ‘Fruity Loops’ was used to create a ‘rap’ style song, sequenced with pupils’ own drum loops and other effects. The French rap lyrics were recorded, using lots of voice expression, and then edited using Audacity. The teachers reported that the pupils were keen to identify and work with new vocabulary and worked very hard to get their pronunciation right. The next step is to record video sequences relevant to the music and to synchronise the two together.
A second experiment involved lower ability Year 8 and 9 Spanish and French classes working with Kar2ouche authoring software to create a 3D multimedia story. They wrote their scripts and recorded them using Audacity, which allowed the use of special effects and improvements in sound quality at the editing stage. This helped to alleviate problems caused by many pupils recording sound files at the same time in one room. Background music was also added. A third experiment involved Year 8 Spanish and French groups, who created PowerPoint presentations with images, text and audio files as an end of topic consolidation activity. Teachers reported clear improvements in motivation and confidence in speaking.
The Piggott School
A collaboration with the Design and Technology department focused on a small group of nine Year 10 pupils drawn from 3 bottom set classes in French and working off-timetable. The pupils created working clocks, each shaped to represent a country of the world of the pupil’s choice. The imperative tense in French was used to describe the construction process and digital photographs were taken of the work in progress. The clocks were also used as a teaching resource alongside a map of the world to practise telling the time in French and to consider different time zones. Pupils worked on PowerPoint presentations of their project, combining voice recordings, text and the photographs. They recorded their script using a microphone and tape recorder (voice recordings were subsequently digitised by staff) and edited the sound files using the software Audacity. The school hopes to write this project into the Scheme of Work for a wider number of pupils next year and to extend the use of digital audio in lessons.
Key
findings
The ambitions, experiences and outcomes of schools varied widely, but
all teachers reported significant benefits from setting up a project.
- improved standards in and engagement with pronunciation
- greater confidence for speaking in the target language
- new opportunity to develop memorisation skills
- increase in vocabulary due to new contexts and personalisation of work and, conversely;
- high-quality repetition and mastery of limited vocabulary
- higher levels of motivation thanks to working with new content in the target language, learning with a teacher from another department and developing new ICT skills
- development of social and communicative skills through interviewing beyond the classroom
- improvements in group working skills and class dynamics
- greater status for MFL in school, through association with another department and involvement of other teachers and pupils as interviewees
- inspiration and new perspectives and skills for MFL teachers, through working with a teacher of another discipline
- teacher familiarisation with freely available audio editing software, with possibilities for many areas of the MFL curriculum
Key points and issues were identified by the teachers, which would usefully
be considered by other schools embarking on similar MFL projects:
- Project design: Short and simple projects, with a small group where possible, are the best starting point. Ensure that groups undertake project planning, with individuals working to specified roles, so that everyone contributes to the best of their ability. Give pupils as many opportunities as possible to work creatively and independently of the teacher. Do consider the possibility of actually teaching the other subject lesson through the medium of the target language. Ensure that you have a clear notion of the eventual audience and channel for dissemination of the audio files; for example, they may be inserted into a PowerPoint presentation along with text and images for use by teachers in Year 7 lessons.
- Planning: Try to choose a colleague with whom you share a class, otherwise you will need to be very creative with the timetable. Successful initiatives require good joint-planning, so talk to SMT about protecting any free periods which coincide. A major issue is ensuring the quality of pronunciation, when pupils are working independently from the teacher. Consider enlisting FLA support or making model recordings available of key words and expressions. It may also be possible to allocate pupils to groups, so that each group includes a good linguist.
- Technical issues: If mini-disk player/recorders are not available, teachers and technical support staff should ensure that sound recording facilities on the network or stand-alone computers are capable of recording audio of adequate quality using the available microphones before a project is started. If mini-disk player/ recorders are being used, teachers should check that pupils are confident in using them to ensure audio is not lost or not recorded.
- Support from colleagues: Good technical support is crucial, particularly at the project set-up stage. Assistance from FLAs and other MFL colleagues can make a huge difference, particularly with regard to policing pronunciation! Remember that a third department may have high levels of technical expertise to share and be glad to get involved.
Further information
Project dissemination
The team at CILT, led by Language Teaching Adviser Claire Dugard, will be disseminating the outcomes of this project through various channels. Further relevant events will be announced as they are planned.
April 2005 – Project dissemination conference;
Feb 2006 - CILT Flying High Conference.
General advice and guidance
Audacity sound editing
freeware used on the project
Languages ICT Forum Join the forum or view the archives, particularly
Mar-Apr-May 2005 for discussion on digital audio issues
Languages ICT website > Useful
ICT ideas, effective language lessons database > ICT used >
Digital audio
Sound Recording for
Language Teaching, AULC (Association of University Language Centres
in the UK and Ireland)
