1. GOOGLE VOICE www.google.com/voice
Google voice is an easy way to get your students excited about speaking assignments. Once you sign up for Google Voice, give students your Google Voice number to call to complete the assignment. Provide students with questions to answer, or a topic to speak about. Yes, they will be able to prepare in advance, however, they will be speaking in the target language from the privacy of their own home without the added pressure of having their classmates judge them. Google Voice is free and easy to use. Just follow the setup instructions when you login. Even though it is linked to your phone, you can set it to go straight to voicemail and never have it ring to your phone. You can check all of the messages right from your computer.
2. PLICKERS www.plickers.com
Plickers is a classroom polling system, which can display results in real time. The only materials you will need to get started are paper, a printer and a smartphone, or tablet.
Plickers requires very little prep. All you need to do is print out the plickers cards, set up your classes, download the app and you are set! Each student gets his/her own plickers card. On each card is the number assigned to that student, True/False choices, or ABCD choices. Make multiple choice, or true false questions. Your students will each hold up his/her plickers card with the chosen answer. You have the option of having students' answers projected to the screen, or just to your computer. Since students have no way of knowing which answers their peers chose, they tend to give more honest answers. When answers are projected the students enjoy seeing how they did compared to the rest of the class.
Set up is easy.
1.Download the plickers app to your smartphone, or tablet.
2.Click on the link above to go to the website and sign up.
3.Set up your classes.
4.Make up the questions.
5.Print plickers cards.
Google voice is an easy way to get your students excited about speaking assignments. Once you sign up for Google Voice, give students your Google Voice number to call to complete the assignment. Provide students with questions to answer, or a topic to speak about. Yes, they will be able to prepare in advance, however, they will be speaking in the target language from the privacy of their own home without the added pressure of having their classmates judge them. Google Voice is free and easy to use. Just follow the setup instructions when you login. Even though it is linked to your phone, you can set it to go straight to voicemail and never have it ring to your phone. You can check all of the messages right from your computer.
2. PLICKERS www.plickers.com
Plickers is a classroom polling system, which can display results in real time. The only materials you will need to get started are paper, a printer and a smartphone, or tablet.
Plickers requires very little prep. All you need to do is print out the plickers cards, set up your classes, download the app and you are set! Each student gets his/her own plickers card. On each card is the number assigned to that student, True/False choices, or ABCD choices. Make multiple choice, or true false questions. Your students will each hold up his/her plickers card with the chosen answer. You have the option of having students' answers projected to the screen, or just to your computer. Since students have no way of knowing which answers their peers chose, they tend to give more honest answers. When answers are projected the students enjoy seeing how they did compared to the rest of the class.
Set up is easy.
1.Download the plickers app to your smartphone, or tablet.
2.Click on the link above to go to the website and sign up.
3.Set up your classes.
4.Make up the questions.
5.Print plickers cards.
3. CHARADES Download the charades app to your smartphone, or tablet. Create games to review the vocabulary you are working on in class. Divide your class into teams and have one person from the team come up to the front of the room. This student will hold up the word, for the class to see without knowing what it is. Students must either use circumlocution in the target language to help the player in the front figure out the word, or they may use gestures. The player in the front must guess in the target language
4. RHINOSPIKE www.rhinospike.com RhinoSpike is an online tool that enables language learners around the globe to exchange language audio files. Listening is the most important skill to develop when learning a language. In an ideal world our students would hear many different people speaking the language to them including native speakers. Unfortunately, most of our students only get to here one voice; that of their teacher. Rhinospike adds flare to otherwise boring listening scripts you might read to your students. You can submit your listening scripts and activities and a native speaker will make a recording that you will receive as an audio file to use in your classes. Since RhinoSpike is free you must give in order to get. You will have to help others by recording yourself reading a few passages that are requested in your native language. For each person you help you will earn credits. You can use these credits to request help from others. When you request help, you can leave instructions on what you want them to do, how fast to read and even request certain accents. For example you might want something read in Canadian French rather than Parisian French. RhinoSpike is easy to use! Simply go to the website, create an account and start recording!